The bingo book
by Kind of a big deal
Summary: Shikamaru reads through pages of the bingo book as he takes it with him on a diplomatically sensitive mission to Kusagakure with an unexpected team. Written almost completely from Shikamaru's perspective.
1. The library

_It's not so much that she is shallow, but as they say power is a very strong aphrodisiac, maybe it's just her type or something? Maybe she subconsciously comparing men to her father? They say it's not uncommon for girls to do that._

I sighed and leaned back in the library chair. My thoughts trail back to why I am in this troublesome situation in the first place.

"_You should try to become jounin as well." _To anyone else besides myself this would have been a pretty straightforward advice from one friend to the other, but I know better. It was code. The exact meaning eludes me still, women after all are very different from men, but I'm pretty sure it meant something like _"I'd like you better if you were jounin."_

What a lame reason to want to become jounin, in a way I'm just as whipped as my own pathetic father. Sure, that guy is an accomplished shinobi in every way and a war veteran at that, but in his every day life he would either be getting drunk with his buddies or get yelled at by mom. Come to think of it, I never really wanted to pry into the exact reason why this one-sided abusive relationship seems to work for them somehow, probably in fear of figuring out something about my parents I don't want to. Something perverted probably. Chouji's parents, and Ino's parents too, they seem to be more a traditional happy household, yeah, to borrow an expression that Chouji sometimes uses, my own family could never be the main characters in a story. Although we are certainly happy enough, and it works somehow, at face value we're too dysfunctional.

Trying to become jounin because a girl told me to, if I ever told that to my buddies, they would probably not even believe me. On the other hand, my team-mates will probably connect the dots and figure out it had to be Temari, and with that out in the open, it would end up being very troublesome indeed. Our group, all their virtues aside, still is a little childish for their age when it came to this sort of thing and they would probably tease me about it. Kiba and Naruto are guaranteed to do that and Lee would just make awkward comments that are just as troublesome in public.

Perhaps they are just being normal, and I'm just ahead for my age, I feel I have learned a lot about how the world works and about life and death, there is no place for naïve ambitions like becoming an avenger at the cost of everything important, or becoming Hokage to prove yourself, or taking over the world for that matter. Things never turn out that way, except in Jiraiya's stories.

Of course I think there's a place for love and happiness in the life of a shinobi, but it's more fleeting by nature. We're often told being constantly surrounded by life and death, it's a large emotional burden a shinobi has to carry, and as a result, many amongst the shinobi are emotionally a little crippled or unadjusted.

As for myself I think I'm doing pretty well dealing with my emotions, experiences have made me stronger but not yet to the point where I have no feelings. That's probably why I get this gnawing feeling that I have become the unofficial leader of our group. It's unspoken but it's in the little things where I notice it. It's always me who had to lead the missions and give the reports to the superiors, and even give the motivational talks. When we're in a tough situation they always count on me to give around instructions too. It wasn't even because I became chuunin first, Neji is already a jounin now and everyone else has an equal rank to mine. I realize now that fate can be ironic, in my quest to become an average guy amidst a generation of overachievers with great ambitions I have become the most solid and reliable guy, for them to fall back on. Looking back, that's probably what the Third saw in me years ago and why I was apparently recommended for chuunin by him personally. What a drag, the old geezer just had to be such an involved Hokage that he knew me better than I knew myself.

My thoughts got interrupted, as I saw Sai enter the library too. I give him a quick subtle nod to acknowledge his presence but not to engage him in conversation, after all, I do have stuff to do. Sai wouldn't have been Sai if he didn't understand subtle gestures, and as I feared and also somewhat expected, he walks over to my table.

"Ah, what are you doing here Shikamaru-san?" Sai said with his typical squinting smile on his face.

"Heh, well it's troublesome, but I decided to try out for jounin, and one of the requirements is to learn the people in the bingo book by heart." I told him. It wasn't a complete lie, it's true that I did decide to try out for jounin, I just happened to leave out the reason why.

"Oh, how interesting." Sai stated bluntly. If I didn't know any better I could have sworn it was sarcasm. "I'm here to read the books on human behaviour."

Actually, I never really cared much for Sai personally. As a shinobi he is definitely good enough to trust with my life, but as a person he is just a magnet for troublesome and awkward situations. As I understand it, he wants to become better adjusted and that is commendable enough and as good a goal as any, but it's just a matter of time until he will make an honest assumption and involuntarily insult people.

"That's great Sai, then let's both be quiet and concentrate on our reading material." I told him. Sai responded to that with a big smile and nod. Somehow I suspect his smiles are probably fake but they do look very convincing. He must have practised it a lot.

My eyes go back to the pages in the book. The bingo book in the library is outdated by a few years, a lot of guys that had died recently still have an entry in the book. It can't be helped, the library is also available to civilians, and only Anbu and the elite jounin have the most recent editions. News in the outside world doesn't spread as quickly in certain circles. Most, if not all of the civilians in Konoha and maybe even in the nation of Fire don't even know much of anything about the affairs of shinobi, let alone people like Akatsuki and Orochimaru.

Konoha's section is the biggest. Not only does the bingo book list missing-nin, but as I found out, it also lists strong ninja that are known by reputation regardless of them defecting or not. Asuma and Kakashi for example are in the book. I remember Kakuzu recognised Asuma-sensei, and from what I heard from Sakura, this Zabuza fellow they had fought with had also recognised Kakashi. So apparently when you became powerful enough you became part of this world where everyone knows each other by reputation. So I figure even if somehow they would end up as opponents, acknowledging each other's power by knowing who they are by reputation is a form of mutual respect. That definitely isn't the kind of attention I need to have.

Realising that Hidan might also have an entry I quickly flipped the page to see it. It's dumb, I should have known it wouldn't be updated yet, since I had seen Asuma-sensei's entry and it wasn't updated either.

Come to think of it, technically Hidan wasn't dead, so he couldn't be scratched from the bingo book anyway. To the outside world he is still at large. Looking back, it was proof of good foresight that Tsunade decided not to ask about the exact details and not to publish the information of my victory to other villages. It wasn't exactly a real mission to begin with. Single-handedly defeating a missing-nin with the calibre of an Akatsuki would normally mean an immediate promotion to jounin, but also an entry in the bingo book. Ideally I would want to be a jounin but not drawing too much attention to myself in the process. There are a few jounin in the village that live in relative anonymity, that's pretty much what I am aiming for too. But by now, I know that at some point down the road my plans will get messed up anyway. Even wanting a normal life in an abnormal world is a naïve goal to strive for. Perhaps I'm not so different from the others after all.

--

I let out a yawn as I stretch back a bit. I understand that I'm procrastinating even with these little gestures. Old habits die hard, even if I want to become a cool adult, I'm still generally lazy.

Let's go over the bingo book again. I suppose there's a certain irony to start with Sasuke. After all, he was my first mission as a chuunin all those years ago. It's unfortunate how easily he is influenced by strong people. As I said to Ino years ago in the forest of death, even a genius will crumble under the pressure of the real world. It's hard to imagine we were once shoulder to shoulder as Konoha nin. He was one of us. No, actually he was on the horizon, he was at the place the rest of us aspired to be. From that distance he seemed like the perfect shinobi, skilled, motivated, calculating, even flawless. But from that distance we couldn't see he had many flaws.

His psychological analysis in the files we have on him revealed he has a tendency to be easily overwhelmed emotionally when the odds are against him. I guess we never noticed because amongst us there was never anyone who could overwhelm him anyway. That must explain why he makes such poor choices when it comes to his dealings with powerful figures like Orochimaru and his brother.

I wonder sometimes what I would say if I would run into him. Would I understand him, or are we in different worlds, and are our views too different? I'm not like Naruto, I don't believe he can be saved. I have often thought about the subject over the years, as I would lay back and enviously watch the clouds pass in the sky, my thoughts will drift uncontrolled, I might not be sane if I didn't let my thoughts run loose from time to time.

Looking at the facts I can only conclude he has travelled down the spiral of violence and death much further than we have. His quest for power at the cost of everything, it has probably stripped him of his humanity. To gain that much power in such a short while, large sacrifices must be made.

Surely Sasuke isn't so naïve that he doesn't understand that the drugs and techniques Kabuto and Orochimaru gave him were made by sacrificing many lives. It's sad, but the very fact that he has this power means many people have died for him to get it.

Because of that, I fear that his power alone, regardless of his actions, makes him beyond redemption. Itachi must have been impressive if Sasuke didn't think he could ever hope to beat him with his own strength. Naruto doesn't see it this way, but it doesn't matter. Even if somehow he brought him back to the village, and even if somehow lady Tsunade would not kill him right there and then, the council of elders and Anbu will come to the same conclusion as I have. There is no place for Sasuke in Konoha any more, it will be a big shock to team 7 when the day comes that they drag him back to Konoha and find out he will have to be executed. I hope, for Naruto and Sakura's sake that they never catch him, and never have to find out that the promise they made to each other when they were kids would turn out to be the thing that kills their friend.

"_You, who were once one of the rookie nine like us, have you changed so much that your loyalty to us means nothing to you any more?"_

That's probably what I would say to him, if I ever met him. I know the answer already but that's how I feel. That's how we all feel. I didn't like him that much personally, but damn it, he was one of us, that has to be worth something. And all these years all of us have felt a great sense of loss about it, while he probably never gave us a second thought.

As I look at his picture one more time before I flip the page, I notice it's still a picture of him made when we were all genin. It's nostalgic and I understand a little bit why Naruto still fights for him. He doesn't fight for the current Sasuke, he fights for the old one, the one standing on the horizon ahead of us. He owes so much to that Sasuke, not the current one. A small smile appears on my face as I think about it, Naruto might be the kind of person to be the main character of a story after all, because through this all, he proves that his loyalty and will of fire is in a different way, stronger than any of ours.

Where ever you are Sasuke, and where ever you end up, I hope you find some sort peace with yourself, and that you'll never run into me, because troublesome as it may be, unlike Naruto, my loyalty to Konoha is greater than my loyalty to you, and I will have to catch you.


	2. More to the mission than meet the eye

At first I just wanted Shikamaru to go through the book and discuss one character at a time, but it's probably a better idea if I keep that theme and put in a storyline in the background. So there's the scenes where Shikamaru is in thought about people in the bingo book, and there's scenes where there's an actual story. There will be a bit of both in this chapter. Oh btw I don't want to do disclaimers, I consider it self-evident that I don't owe any of the stuff I'm writing about because this is a web page for fan fiction, after all.

* * *

As I flip Sasuke's page, I notice Sai is staying in the corner. That's a good thing, he won't bother me. He has a rather large pile of literature on the table next to him. I can't even imagine why anyone would want to write books on human interaction in the first place. Who else is going to read it besides Sai? And why are there so many books on the subject to begin with? Somewhere in the world there's people that think they can somehow make money by writing books on a subject that only a handful of people would read, let alone buy. I let out a sigh as I conclude that this is too illogical for me. No sense getting worked up over something so silly.

Who else is in the library anyway? Let's see, I suppose it's the usual crowd, I see Sakura over there in the section on medical books, that was to be expected, although surprisingly Ino always had the highest grades back in the academy, it was always Sakura who was more disciplined with her duties. There's someone else over there, what's her name... Oh yeah that code breaker girl, Shiho. I have to say, I don't really understand her, at face value you'd think she's kinda shy but she always tends to hang around me somehow whenever I happen to run into her, strangely enthusiastic. Maybe being cooped up in that office all day makes you appreciate something different in your daily routine. I can relate to that.

For some reason or the other, out of all the chuunin of my generation it's always Sakura and myself who have to do all kinds of menial paperwork jobs for Tsunade. She's smarter than she looks, I think it's just her way of motivating me to promote to jounin. Not a bad method, I definitely don't want to end up like Kotetsu and Izumo, carrying papers around all day long, were it not for Temari having beat her to it, this plan of Tsunade's would probably work, on the long run.

"Looking at the girls, eh Shikamaru?"

What? Oh it's Kotetsu and Izumo, what a coincidence. I suppose you could say we're kinda friends since we worked together in the Niju Shotai days when we were chasing Akatsuki. Typical of them to make a troublesome remark like that, they never really lost their attitude like they had when they were chuunin examinators.

"It's not like that, I'm just bored from all this studying." I say as I hold up the bingo book. Well I just nudge it upwards a little, actually holding it up is too much work.

"Well, then just take it with you, because Tsunade has summoned you to come to her office." As soon as Izumo was done speaking, Kotetsu continued.

"It seems you have a mission coming up soon." Don't they realise how creepy it is that they're almost at the point where they finish each other's sentences? Chouji is a dear friend of mine but I hope we'll never start doing that. People might get the wrong idea and that would open up a whole new world of troublesome.

"Man, what a drag, why can't she just send you guys on this mission?" I say as I get up, slowly.

"Actually we're also tagging along on this mission." That was Kotetsu.

"We'll meet our jounin leader for this mission when we get to the office." And as expected, that was Izumo.

After a few hand signs they disappear in a puff of smoke. It's always awkward when people leave like that, you never know exactly where they teleported to, for all you know they're watching you. Apparently they caught everyone's attention by doing that as well, because everyone's looking at me now. How troublesome. Sai is looking at me from behind a book with a sort of blanc and nearly clueless stare, Sakura is smiling and holding her index finger in front of her mouth, gesturing me to be quiet, and Shiho seems to be clutching a book and readjusting her glasses, she's a little red on the cheeks too. She must be a little mad at me for making noise in the library, I guess. Grabbing the bingo book I walk out of the library too.

Some day I'll have to ask them about this teleportation technique of theirs, it's probably some sort of reverse summoning to the Hokage office I think, because it's used mostly by Anbu and people on Tsunade's staff, but since I'm over there so often, I might as well go through the trouble of learning the exact details myself. Neither of them told me there was any reason to hurry up, so I'll just take a nice walk to the Hokage office instead of roof jumping. It'll give me an opportunity to read up on the bingo book as well.

I carefully let the covers of the book fall in each of my hands. It's a trick I learned for infiltration, there's always a page that is opened and viewed the most often in a book. If you let the book fall open and you let the pages fall to either side without resisting, you will usually end up with the most often viewed page because of the way paper folds, if it stays in a certain position for a while.

Not really a surprise to see it land on the page of the fourth Hokage. Almost instinctively I look up at the Hokage monument to see his carved out portrait. Hokage monument always did awaken a sort of pride within me, as a strong reminder that throughout all the generations, we all carry the same ideals. And then to think some people say that the fourth would have been the greatest of them all.

It's blatantly obvious that there's a strong resemblance between him and Naruto, but the fourth is called Minato Namikaze, so I guess we're supposed to assume he's not related to Naruto after all. I suspect there must be something more behind all this, but when I asked Asuma about it one day he told me it was classified information. That was very peculiar to say the least. There's so many things that don't seem to make sense. For example, nobody seems to want to say anything about any parents Naruto would have had, this is all very troublesome indeed. But this is all hardly a mystery, we're supposed to be looking underneath the underneath, after all, so like most people my age I have my suspicions, but I won't tell Naruto, he's been living to become Hokage and this might get his hopes up unnecessarily. It's actually convenient in this case that he's so oblivious sometimes, I wonder if he ever thinks about who his parents might be.

The bingo book mentions him as a war hero in the third great ninja war. The enemy forces apparently had a flee on sight order in case they would encounter him. While this is definitely a great way to avoid trouble with shinobi who are not of your calibre, it probably has the reversed effect on the truly strong ones. If anything, it probably works out just as well for the Fourth because he can focus on the enemies that are worthy.

But there's one thing that completely overshadows all the good things on this page, something that awakens a fear inside of me from deep within. He died so young, he was supposed to become the greatest under the sun, and Konoha was supposed to go through a golden age. While you can argue that the latter did happen, Konoha is still the strongest force in the known shinobi world, it was all due to the work of the third who had to take on the job again, after the fourth died. Yes, he did an admirable job, but it wasn't the way it was meant to be. The third, he was more of a grandfather to Konoha at this point, his own students had students of their own, whilst the fourth could be argued, was more of a father. This tragedy for the village, even though it was before my time, still makes it clear to everyone that no matter how great you are, it's no guarantee for a long life.

This is all very depressing, but at least he had a death worthy of the shinobi that he is, and he got to pass on his will of fire to the village. As a man, you can't ask for more, no matter how great you were in life, you were just given one life just as everyone else. I wonder, what will inevitably happen to Tsunade, when her time comes. She was depressed for a long time, but I think she may have found some new purpose in life when she became Hokage, in a way, she owes us just as much as we owe to her. Yeah she's troublesome most of the time, and a little too strict for my taste, but she's alright, I guess.

As if on cue, as I reach that conclusion, I arrive at the Hokage tower. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm going over all the possibilities of who the jounin leader for the mission might be, and what kind of mission it'll be. It has to be someone with at least a bit of seniority because Kotetsu and Izumo are also on the team and they're not exactly rookies. So it won't be someone like Neji who is only one year my senior and younger than the other two. Heh, that guy is frustratingly by-the-book at all times, especially during missions. For someone who suffers from his inevitable fate, he seems uncharacteristically inflexible in his methods and never bends the rules. If you're going to behave like that, it's no wonder you have an inescapable destiny, nothing about you will be surprising. All his flaws aside though, he's not too bad to hang out with, at least he's quiet and smart.

Then it hits me. What if the jounin leader is someone incredibly annoying, even .. troublesome. Well, now that I have arrived at the office, I'll have to open the door to find out. I knock on the door a few times and proceed to enter. No real need to wait for an answer, people come in and out of the office all the time anyway, it's not like it's a private quarters. On the right I see Kotetsu and Izumo are here, leaning against the wall and they seem to be grinning for some reason. In the middle, behind the desk is Tsunade, she looks pretty pissed off. I guess I was wrong assuming there was no rush to get to the office, after all. No use getting worked up over it now, but I better apologise.

"Ehh, sorry Lady Tsunade, I wasn't under the impression we had to be here as soon as po-" As I'm working on apology, I get cut off by a strangely familiar voice.

"Oh man, don't tell me you're the fourth team member." I turn to the left, to see the jounin. Well, this is certainly a surprise, not only does he have no real seniority in this group, he's also very troublesome.

"How have you been, Kankuro." I say as I shove my hands in my pockets. It feels right to act especially nonchalant to counter his usual brash and arrogant behaviour. He smirks and crosses his arms. Something is weird, why do we have a sand jounin for this mission?

"Al right kids, listen up I'll go over the mission details now." Tsunade says, as she grabs a file from a huge pile. "It's a B ranked mission, into the Grass and Earth nation. Earth country has apparently been stationing troops on the border, and as a result, representatives of hidden Grass in Suna have asked for help on the matter, however Gaara thought it would be diplomatically less volatile if Konoha handled the matter, we are a little more neutral on the matter, Wind and Earth country are long time rivals, after all. Be that as it may, Kankuro is here as team leader, Gaara did send his brother as a token of good will and personal involvement towards the hidden Grass."

Who would have thought Gaara of all people would be adept at the subtle art of diplomacy. Oh well, nothing to worry about, it looks like it's just a standard recon mission. Nobody has anything to gain by starting an invasion, so we'll probably just go and scout behind enemy lines and then report back and reassure the hidden Grass it was no big deal. One thing does bother me a little.

"Why can't they just send shinobi of their own to check it out?" I guess Kankuro was wondering the same thing. It's a pretty obvious question, but Tsunade seems reluctant to answer for some reason.

"Well, that's the second part of the mission, you see, they didn't tell us, but from comparing Anbu notes and works of the Suna black ops, we managed to work out that about a week ago the hidden Grass dispatched a team to go see what was going on, but when they returned, one of their shinobi who had a blood-line limit was captured and his body was recovered later, but with the blood-line limit removed. To perform that kind of operation, you would need some high level medical jutsu, besides myself, there's only a few people in the world who can do that."

Already I start to list shinobi that I know about, who could do this. The list is small, the only plausible explanation is that they have someone like Kabuto involved, or at his level. This is starting to get a little too strange for a mere B level mission. Just as I'm about to say something about it, Tsunade continues.

"This might turn out to be crucial information, and it's also the reason why I have selected you three as chuunin for this mission. All three of you don't have a bloodline limit, and you are close to jounin or at least special jounin level now, I suspect there's more to the mission to warrant it just a B level, so it's a good idea to send a strong team when they expect an average team."

She hands over the file to Kankuro, who takes it but doesn't seem very eager to. We're definately not a weak team, but I wouldn't go as far as to call us a strong one, and judging by the worried faces of Izumo and Kotetsu, we all know it. We get one more instruction from Tsunade.

"The details are in the file, you leave tomorrow morning and the contact person will be just outside of the hidden Grass village. We already suspect they haven't told us everything there is to know about the mission, so as soon as you think it exceeds the requirements for a B level mission, you can abandon and report back to me. After all, the business of the Earth and Grass villages doesn't affect us immediately."

That's good to know, but I already think it exceeds the requirements before we have even started. When we get outside the office, we're professionals, no room for teasing or joking around now, a mission is still at the risk of your life and exchanging ideas at the start is important to know where we stand on the matter. Kankuro starts. "What do you dudes think?"

They turn to me first, I should have known. "Well, I think it's going to be a lot more than just a B ranked mission. We could just go back in the office and give back the mission right now."

It's silent for a few seconds as we stare at the floor. What I just said was what we were all thinking during the briefing. Then Kankuro speaks up.

"If we did that, my brother would look bad to the Grass representatives, I agree with you that it's not a fair mission, but I'm afraid we have to at least try."

He's right, not even attempting the mission would look very bad diplomatically, and Temari would have my head next time she visits if she heard I made Gaara look bad. Kotetsu speaks up now.

"So we have no choice then, I'm sure we'll be okay, we can stop when we want to, right?" He says as he lifts his hands and shoulders. As I expected now, Izumo continues. "Yeah for all we know it's really just a simple recon mission after all."

It's decided then, we'll do this troublesome mission, and it will most probably not turn out the way we expect it to, as it goes with all things.


	3. Conversation with Kankuro

Al right before I begin, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, it's my first story (ever) and I really only started to write the first chapter as a challenge to myself to see if I could write a story from someone else's perspective. It's totally lame, but I picked Shikamaru because I pwn my friends when I pick him in the Naruto game on the Wii. Anyways I decided to throw in Izumo and Kotetsu because they need more attention in stories around here, seriously. Also the romance theme is going to be of secondary importance at best, probably even less, not only because I somewhat dislike mushy love stories with predictable endings, but also, and this is actually important, because it's just completely out of character with someone like Shikamaru and wouldn't feel right. Since I started this without any real goal up front or even a general outline, I'm making this story up as I go. Okay so where did I stop last time..

* * *

The four of us stand here in the hallway for a second. In just a glance at someone's eyes and expression, you can tell. You know what they're thinking. In this moment we feel the silence that comes before the storm, and we know that all four of us know it. Certainly we have done dangerous missions before, but every single time we start a new one we're nervous, no exceptions. It's probably healthy too, being a little scared won't make you throw your life away on a whim. I see even Kankuro, who should have had more extensive emotional training, is nervous, although he hides it well.

But that's the thing, you can't destroy or erase your emotions. You can veil them, make them less accessible even to yourself, but they never disappear. At some critical point, they will come back to you. So there's really no point in trying to make yourself feel nothing, it won't make you stronger, if anything, it's our emotions than are the basic principle behind our strength. It's also in essence what the will of fire is all about, we are at our strongest, when we fight for something truly worth defending to us. It's a little corny, but I know I'm not the only one who feels that way, it is something that we are taught since the first day we entered the academy. Everyone has their own thing, it can be your nindo, or it can be saving a friend, everyone has their own king to protect.

"Hey, can I crash at your place?" Kankuro suddenly asks. He certainly can switch his mood from deadly serious to completely carefree easily.

"Ehh I guess, yeah. I suppose you just arrived here in Konoha?" As we engage the conversation with Kankuro I nod to Izumo and Kotetsu, as they're about to take off as well. I'll see them tomorrow morning.

"That's right. It's a good thing too, usually I'd hang out at Kiba's place when I'm in Konoha, because he owes me big-time, but he still lives with his parents and all those dogs. I hate dogs even more than I hate brats" He declares. I can't say I disagree with him, dogs are definitely troublesome and always full of energy.

As we start walking out of the Hokage tower, something starts to bother me. I know it's not very subtle but my curiosity is getting the better of me. Not to mention I kinda want to know where I stand with this guy, I don't know him that well except for a few encounters here and there, if anything we're more acquaintances than friends.

"So, how's Temari doing?"

He's not saying anything. That's probably not a good thing, I know he's rather protective of her, to put it mildly. Now that I'm in this awkward situation, I notice how he's still a little taller than I am, I guess he's pretty good at intimidating people. Suddenly he pats me on the back a little too hard for my taste, and turns to face me.

"She's fine." He says matter-of-factly. His face doesn't betray anything, he's pretty good at this kind of thing, this is definitely annoying, and the face paint isn't helping either, if anything, it masks his expressions. Then he keeps walking and changes the subject. That's good enough for me, I won't ask again and he most definitely won't bring it up again either, I'm sure. Not a very practical skill, but I'm pretty good at dealing with awkward silences, I can appreciate them for what they are. Silence.

"Tsunade said back there that you're close to jounin level now, are you going to apply?" I consider for a moment telling him the reason for my motivation to become jounin, but I quickly conclude that I better just humour him with the small-talk.

"It'll be a pain but I might as well. Jounin do have a bit more freedom to make choices of their own in Konoha, at least I'll have less orders from Tsunade." We both know it's more of an attempt at a joke than anything. Although it's true that jounin have more autonomy and are free to follow their own initiative if they think something is important enough, it's not true they work less hard than chuunin.

We walk for a while towards my apartment. I get the bingo book from out of my jacket. I wonder if there's anything about Kankuro in it? Probably not though, it hasn't been updated in a while and it's only been a little over a year since he made jounin. Not enough time to make a name for himself yet. However, his father, the fourth Kazekage is mentioned. Even with the face paint, I can easily tell the resemblance is uncanny. More so than Gaara, Kankuro looks a lot like his father. I don't know much about his father, but he must have been really strong, a Kage title isn't something to take lightly. I wonder who of the three siblings has a technique most similar to their father? The bingo book doesn't say much, but if he were a puppet master, it would have been noticed, so it's probably not that. I heard the third Kazekage had this iron sand bloodline limit, and Gaara who is the Fifth could control sand as well. Perhaps controlling sand is a requirement for being Kage in the hidden sand? I could ask Kankuro, but he wouldn't tell me anyway. We're allies, maybe even the closest allies out of all the nations and hidden villages, but we're not yet ready to exchange secrets like that. Speaking of secrets, I should ask him something for the mission.

"Hey Kankuro, I see you're carrying summoning scrolls now, do you have new techniques or just new puppets?" I need to know these things if I'm going to have to formulate strategies in the field during the mission.

"You could say they're 'just' new puppets, but.." he seems to be contemplating whether or not to finish his sentence. ".. they're just really strong, all right? I want to keep it a surprise for now."

Jeez, what a troublesome answer, I can't do anything with that. "I'm going to find out eventually if we need them, I promise I'll just act surprised or something."

"Well, I'll just say that they're some interesting puppets I reconstructed from the remains of the battle with Akatsuki's Sasori a few months ago. That guy with the bugs what was his name again?"

"Ehhh Shino, why?" I have no idea why he's bringing Shino up all of a sudden.

"Yeah that's right, Shino. He has this expression of his, keeping an ace up your sleeve, right? Well with these puppets I have an ace too, I can turn the tide of any battle."

Yeah right, now he's just bragging. He probably still feels the need to try to intimidate me somewhat. What a troublesome guy, and to think I'm going to have to do a whole mission with him even though we're on different wavelengths, I'm not looking forward to it.

"Hey Shikamaru!"

Kankuro and I stop walking and turn around. I heard Ino's voice, but she's not alone it seems, she's accompanied by Sakura. I don't see them hanging out together that often any more, even though they made up and became friends as well as staying rivals in both ninjutsu and love. 'Don't you lose to Sakura' was what Asuma said with his last words. Thinking back about that time makes me want to light a cigarette. I grab the pack and light one up while Ino and Sakura are approaching. I offer one to Kankuro but he makes a small dismissive wave with his hand.

"Ino probably wants something." I say to Kankuro, preparing him. Usually Ino is overcompensating when she's hanging around with Sakura, trying to outdo her with everything, although they both became more womanly in their appearance, they're not so different in their behaviour as they were, say, three years ago.

"Aren't you going to introduce us to your friend, Shikamaru?" says Ino, as she has her hands on her side and leans forward a little, as if she's lecturing me. Still trying to teach me manners just like she did when we were kids, I find it as sweet as I find it annoying.

"Well actually you already met, it's Kankuro." For a split second I consider adding that he's Temari's sister but that's probably not a good idea.

"Kankuro, how've you been?" says Sakura. The way she said it, it sounds like she's most familiar with him out of the three of us.

"How do _you _know him, forehead girl?!" Oh man, I should have known Ino would react like that. I have a short moment of eye contact with Kankuro and he's thinking what I'm thinking, the atmosphere is going to take a turn for the worst real soon.

"Hah! I'll have you know I know him rather well, Ino pig!" At this point I'm tuning out and they're just white noise to me. Yeah, this is exactly one of those moments when I envy the clouds, they don't have to deal with all these trivial matters. They just let the wind carry them around. Heh, that's not even such a bad metaphor for the situation I'm in. I'm one of these careless clouds that I envy so much, and if it were up to me I'd be perfectly happy just minding my own business, being at peace with myself. But to get anywhere, I need a gust of wind to carry me. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what I mean by that, in fact if I'd say it out loud, it would probably sound a little corny. Admiring clouds is an acquired taste, you have to enjoy taking your time and listening to the sounds of the world. Then the slow movement of the clouds won't seem so slow, and it'll be quite fascinating to look at. Almost hypnotic. There's so many fascinating things to see and experience if you stop from time to time and appreciate them, even things we take for granted like a patch of grass on a poorly maintained road, or the trail of smoke coming out of a cigarette. You could spend a lifetime looking in detail at all the things in the world, and I think it would not be a wasted life.

I get slapped back into reality on the back of my head by Kankuro. Ino and Sakura are gone.

"Yo, you just tuned out with that weird peaceful look on your face and they got pissed off at you and left." he says.

I let out a sigh, realising I'll have to apologise next time I run into Ino. "Yeah that's how I usually handle their fights. I go to my safe place. Troublesome women have that effect on me."

"I know what you mean, and girls are shallow too, they always seem to go for the cool and elite guys."

"Yeah, you're right about that." I say as I throw away the cigarette butt. What he said was almost literally what I told Naruto one day. Maybe we're not on a totally different wavelength after all. It's only a little thing, but it makes me slightly more optimistic about the coming mission to know we at least agree on something. We stand there, in silence, agreeing that girls, or women as I say, are troublesome creatures that we'll never fully understand. Then I start to wonder about a detail I missed. When we start walking again I ask him.

"How does Sakura know you anyway?"

"Well it's a long story, but let's just say last time we met she ended up taking off my clothes and she had her hands all over me."

What the heck? That sounds extremely implausible. Come on, it's Sakura we're talking about. He's probably just making it up anyway.

"Okay.. you know what, forget I asked. I don't really want to know, now that you're being troublesome about it."

From just outside the apartment where I live I can see the main gate. We'll meet there tomorrow morning. Every time I leave there to go on a mission, I wonder if it's the last time I see Konoha. It's not because I'm pessimistic, if anything I use that last view of Konoha as an extra motivation to make it back in one piece.


	4. The mission starts early

It occurred to me that not everyone might know the topography of the Naruto universe. Fire nation, with Konoha is in the centre, then Wind country (with Suna) is to the southwest. Grass nation is a tiny nation to the northwest of Fire nation. Earth country is a little further to the northwest. For reference, country of tea with the hidden sound is to the north, same direction as the valley of the end. Google for leafninja and world map to find out if you want to have it more precise.

* * *

It's chilly this morning, outside the gate I can see the trees waver at the mercy of the wind. The clouds are stretched out because the wind is strong today and their shadows pass over the buildings of Konoha not unlike a snake that navigates over uneven ground. If you take the time to look around, it's as though everything in the world is in motion one way or the other. The more concentrated you are, the more you notice it, as time seems to pass more slowly. These moments, right before the work starts, are my favourite moments. Partly because we're not actually working yet, but for the most part, it's because we're united in a common goal, there's a certain unspoken camaraderie during missions that doesn't exist in every day life. These guys, Kotetsu, Izumo and Kankuro, normally I don't know them that well, but right now they're closer to me than anyone else in the world.

Quite a few people have come to see us off even though it's early in the morning, they're mostly curious civilians who happen to be in the vicinity, but there's some familiar faces too. I can see Shizune, carrying Tonton, she's here on behalf of old lady Tsunade, who is probably sleeping off a hangover. I'm also surprised to see Kurenai here, I don't think she should be walking around so far from her home at this stage of her pregnancy. I brought it up a few times but I find it too troublesome to repeat myself now, so I tell her to take care of herself. I'm also happy to see Chouji's here. Hadn't seen him in a while, and though we can't really catch up, we know each other well enough to see how we're doing without exchanging too many words. When I make it to jounin and get to pick my own teams, I'll request him in my teams as often as I can. Heck, troublesome as it may be I'll probably include Ino as well, the three of us working together are more than the sum of it's parts.

When you graduate from the academy you're taught that teamwork is the most important thing to learn, and ours was undoubtedly the strongest in any of the teams that were formed in our generation. Kakashi and Gai might have had more prestige, but I think Asuma was the best jounin teacher out of them all, because even though individually we were the least talented group, looking back now, I see that as a team we could keep up with any of the other teams, and they had bloodline limits and raw power to spare.

When we did the bell test, I immediately understood the concept behind it. Asuma didn't know what happened when I declared that I thought it was too troublesome and that I'd forfeit mine to Chouji so he could pass, and when Chouji told him he'd trade it for food that Ino brought along because she ignored his orders about having an empty stomach and not bringing food. In our own stupid way we had passed the test before it even began, but to us it just felt right to do it that way. I thought all teams worked together as easily as we did, but it's only later that I learned there's teams where you have to put in a lot of effort just to make it work somehow.

Kankuro slaps me on the head because I'm absent minded again. I'm actually happy he doesn't carry a huge metal fan with him, because slapping me is a trait that runs in the family, apparently.

"Alright, we move." he tells us, and jumps out of the village gates first. We decided we wouldn't need a formation until we get close to the border with Grass nation. Kotetsu and Izumo hastily exchange a few words with people I don't know before following after Kankuro. There's still a lot of people I don't know, even though it's supposed to be a village. With my hands in my pockets, I shrug my shoulders and sigh, as I follow after them. The precious peaceful moments have ended, and under the eyes of the village, we head for Grass nation.

So far so good, travelling the woods is routine by now, I could do it with my eyes closed. If we keep this speed we should make it to the border in a day and a half. The meeting with the contact person is in two days, so we'll probably get some rest when we're near the border. Looking forward to that already.

"At the gate, that pretty woman that you talked to, the one that's pregnant, you wouldn't happen to have anything to do with that, right?" Kankuro suddenly asks. Who the hell does he take me for? Behind my back I can hear Izumo has trouble keeping a straight face.

"Ehh no, don't worry about it.. and don't jump to conclusions like that, it's troublesome."

"Then, what's the deal?"

"I'll explain some other time, Kankuro. It's pretty complicated."

"It's not like we're pre-occupied, just tell me now, and then later I'll promise I'll act surprised, or something." he then says, mimicking me as he says it. Somewhere I vaguely remember I said something like that to him yesterday. Yeah this is going to be a long journey, al right.

I consider for a moment how I should explain it to him sufficiently without using too many words.

"I promised my late sensei I would take care of his kid for him." I'm sorry Asuma, but I'm using your death to play the guilt card, so he'll feel awkward about bringing it up.

"That wasn't very complicated. Who would have known you'd turn out to be a reliable guy, huh?"

It's a pretty perceptive remark of his, even though he probably just says it casually. I don't respond to him. He was being sarcastic about it, and I think he's just trying to trick me into arguing with him. To pass the time on the routine parts of missions, we all have our thing. Some like to read, like Kakashi, others meditate, or brood, depending on their character, and some apparently like to argue.

We make good time as we jump through the forest, Kankuro seems to know the way around Fire nation rather well. A little strange considering I don't think I'd navigate that easily around Wind country. Next up to take point is Kotetsu, and then Izumo, so I have some time to spare before I have to lead the way. I reach for the bingo book and start to read it while we're moving. With my usual slouched posture and my attention aimed at the book, I must look a little like Kakashi. On the occasions we happen to discuss things together, it's pretty relaxing that he doesn't seem to be in any hurry just like me. You know what, I might as well read the entry on the famous copy ninja, it's pretty extensive but I have several hours to spare.

It's a pretty impressive track record, it's no wonder some people think he is worthy of becoming Hokage. I thought I was on the fast track when I became chuunin when I was twelve, but Kakashi was unfortunate enough to grow up in times of war, and he must have matured really fast, because he was only six years old when he was deemed strong enough in body and mind to be chuunin. I can't imagine taking orders from a six year old, it's just too strange, but different rules apply during wartime, all is fair, as they say. His aloof attitude must have something to do with having missed out on years in his childhood, because of tragedies.

They say he's a genius. It's a troublesome word, people don't understand it very well. For example, when they say I'm a genius, they're referring to my strategic thinking ability, or my IQ. However when people say Sasuke is a genius, they're not talking about an IQ, they're talking about his natural talent. There's civilians that can give me a run for my money at shogi, but there's geniuses at combat that I can defeat easily at shogi and I could never hope to defeat in battle. So it's hard to say exactly where Kakashi fits in all of this.

I never really felt like I was in the same category as people like Sasuke and Neji, I'm not so confident in my fighting abilities that I can charge into any battle, I need to use every aspect and every detail just to make it through alive somehow. You might think this is a weakness, but it's in fact the reason I can compete with people who are so confident in their abilities, often they focus only on themselves and their target.

Kakashi is a different case though, he is rightfully called a genius for his fighting ability, but he also seems to be more like me in his thinking. In fact he's somewhere in-between, not quite my flexible thinking, and not quite the top tier battle genius such as someone like Itachi. It's an interesting combination of intelligence. This duality, it's present in more than one aspect of him, the most obvious one is his eyes. But his carefree attitude and deadly skill is another one of those dualities. If I didn't know any better, I would think that the eye transplant has made him develop a slight form of dual personalities.

That sharingan eye of his, I heard from Naruto that he recently developed a new eye technique. He should be able to compete with Kage level opponents because of it. That's definitely impressive, but it's also mysterious, I was under the impression he couldn't develop his eye techniques further because he wasn't an Uchiha. I must have missed a huge clue, that sort of thing frustrates me a little, I feel powerless when I don't know why things happen the way they do.

A thousand techniques, that's about as many as the Third had mastered. Sure, he sort of stole them, and didn't research them himself, but nonetheless he has a thousand techniques at his disposal. Makes you wonder why he always uses the same ones, perhaps it's just an exaggeration, and it intimidates possible opponents to hear it. Or perhaps he has learned nine hundred and ninety useless techniques. Those techniques better not have anything to do with those books he always reads, to know that about him is definitely too much information. The more I think about it, the more it starts to make sense, I swear, sometimes it's very troublesome to think too deeply into things.

Well, since Jiraiya isn't around any more, he won't be getting any new novels either. I read them and it's entertaining enough, but a little dumb. I get the feeling Kakashi understands something in those books that everyone else doesn't. Perhaps it's all code and there's all sorts of secret messages? That's definitely an interesting idea, perhaps I'll look into it later, if I can be bothered to. I could ask Shiho, she's good at that sort of stuff, but it's a little awkward to ask a girl to read through that kind of literature, she might get the wrong idea.

Looks like Kotetsu is taking the lead now. The sun still isn't at it's apex, so we're making good time if we're already down to a quarter of the route for today. Izumo is right in front of me, he seems to be yawning. Must not have gotten a lot of sleep last night. He isn't the only one, Kankuro snores, even though he slept on the couch in the living room I could hear him clearly. If it wasn't too much trouble to me, to get out of bed and all the way over there, I would have done something about it.

Kotetsu stops on a large branch, Izumo stops right next to him, I land on their left, Kankuro fell back went behind me after having been on the lead, stops on their right side.

"What is it?" Izumo asks.

"There's something ahead."

Let's see, I quickly go over all the details, up here on our level the branches look clear, some broken twigs and disturbed leaves on the ground. These features are spread out over a large area. I hear voices in the wind but I normally would have missed them if I wasn't paying attention to them. I'm impressed Kotetsu noticed the tracks. He must be close to jounin indeed.

"They're not shinobi." Kotetsu says. He's right, shinobi would leave tracks up in the trees, so these people haven't mastered chakra control.

"I agree, it's a group, bigger than five people probably, but no more than twenty and they're on foot. I think 2 clicks ahead of us, judging by sound and how fresh the tracks are." I give them my analysis.

"This part of Fire country, they could be a caravan, but we're not on a main road.."

".. So it's more probable these are bandits." Izumo and Kotetsu are right, and it's obvious because we can feel a slight killing intent resonating from where they are.

"What do we do Kankuro? It's troublesome to fight them because they're not really part of the mission, but they're up to no good. It's up to you."

Kankuro stands up and grabs a scroll from his back.

"We'll fight them, it'll be a good opportunity to test our battle tactics before we get to Grass country. Besides, all this travelling through the woods is boring."

"Okay, let me work out a plan."

The branch we're standing on is wide enough for us to sit in a circle. We only decided on some basic formations before we set off, so I'm going to have to work out a detailed tactic now.

I close my eyes automatically my hands go in their usual position. First things first, look at what we have available to us. I know my own abilities and equipment. Kotetsu's main ability is his specialised summon weapons, Izumo has his syrup capture field jutsu. Izumo's technique is probably more effective on a large group of thugs than my techniques for capturing them. Kankuro refused to give me any real details on his puppets, that's troublesome, but I'll have to deal with that lack of information now.

Next up, methods. These opponents are probably not too hard to deal with, so a smoke bomb entrance is a good idea. Kankuro should have a puppet throw it, in case they don't fall for it, they'd have a double surprise because we're not at the position the bomb was thrown from. If this doesn't startle them, the second backup would be that I'll have to use shadow possession on a few of them, try to figure out who the leader during the previous events. Snaring the leader has the maximum effect for disorder amongst them. With three methods for catching them off-guard, one of them should work.

At this point, Izumo should use his capture field jutsu and trap them. This will leave him vulnerable for thrown projectiles if the bandits can think on their feet even though they're immobile, and I might be pre-occupied with my shadow possession jutsu if we have to use the second fail save. That leaves Kotetsu, which works out fine, because they're used to working together anyway. He'll summon some sort of weapon to deal with possible projectile attacks.

When they're caught in the jutsu, Kankuro, and possibly Kotetsu and myself, if we haven't been necessary yet, can finish them off. It's not as detailed as I'd want it to be, but we don't know much about our opponents so it can't be helped.

I open my eyes, sit up a little straighter, and start to explain the plan.

"Remember to go through the plan and simulate it in your head a few times, this will help to increase the success rate."

"Al right, let's get in position. Remember to check if they really are bandits before we attack, we're not entirely sure yet. Move out." Kankuro orders us.


	5. Civil war in Rice field country

These are not bandits. I'm not sure exactly what this group is though, but I hope Kankuro understands this as well, he's supposed to start the attack. We're separated now and we can't communicate. If we sit back for too long, one of us is going to start wondering what to do, and might make a move just to force a chain of events. It's always nerve wrecking to rely on the intuition of team members like this. We train for formations, battle style, technique, but these are judgement calls that have more to do with personality than training. Will we attack, or will we fall back?

It all depends on Kankuro, he's the team leader and he's supposed to open up the attack formation. If he does decide to fall back, how long should I wait before I fall back as well? I have no contact with him, so if I decide it has been long enough, I might leave, and they might decide to attack. I wouldn't be in position and they would get in trouble. This whole situation is troublesome, we wanted things to be either obviously bad or indisputably good, that way we would know whether or not to attack. Now it's in a sort of uneasy middle ground because we can't assess the target correctly. This whole thing is more troublesome than I thought.

And then to top it off I have absolutely no way to judge how Kankuro is going to handle the situation because things are awkward between us, and he's purposely keeping a wall between us. He might be wondering what Izumo and Kotetsu might do as well. For the battle formation we decided they should be together, so they might argue over it and get impatient before Kankuro or I will. On the other hand they're more experienced than I am and probably more disciplined. At least I know I'm predictable to Kankuro, because he thinks I'm lazy or passive. Although usually this image people have of me is annoying, it works to my advantage. Right now I can't do anything about our situation though, I should focus on trying to find a way to identify the targets.

It's only seven people, one of them is a shinobi from Takigakure, the Hidden Waterfall village, according to his headband. Somewhat long brown hair hanging loosely and he wears a Takigakure flak jacket, signifying he is at least chuunin. Looks like he wears standard equipment. Although I didn't read the whole bingo book yet, he doesn't look familiar, so he's not a reputable opponent. The other six seem civilians, dressed in some sort of white aristocrat robes. They're resting in a clearing in the forest. Some of them are sitting on branches on the ground, the shinobi is standing in the middle, and it looks like he's talking to some old guy. From what we discussed for the battle formation I can assume Kankuro is in one of the trees on the other side of the clearing and Izumo and Kotetsu are to my left in the bushes somewhere. If he uses a smoke grenade thrown by a puppet, it will be from my right.

Are they on a mission in Fire nation? Takigakure is on neutral terms with Fire country, so we can't just kill him, but they are being very suspicious. In fact I don't think the civilians are from either Fire country or from Waterfall, their outfit and crests look like they're native from the Rice field country, in which the remnants of Orochimaru's Hidden Sound still move freely. This is certainly tricky, we don't want to start a diplomatic problem on top of an already charged mission.

The Rice field daimyo made a poor decision to allow Orochimaru to create a hidden village, though he wanted to increase the military power to be more on equal footing with other nations, he had been losing control over his own land slowly because of it. A deal with the devil that slowly eats him up from the inside, the method is a little like the concept behind the cursed seal.

Now that the Hidden Sound has lost the war with Konoha and Orochimaru is somewhat out of the picture, he hasn't taken advantage of the opportunity to get rid of these remnants. This leads me to believe he has yet some more use for the remains of Hidden Sound, perhaps to add them to his own ranks somehow and create a nation where the ninja village and the authority of the country are controlled by the same person. Not only is this a bad idea to begin with, the daimyo has been a poor leader so far and this won't benefit the people of Rice field country either.

But why is a Waterfall shinobi escorting Rice field civilians? Are they smuggling him in the country, or is he smuggling them out? It doesn't make sense, going through Fire country is illogical and a big detour for them if it's either of these scenarios. Perhaps they have common business here in Fire country?

This is also getting me nowhere. I have to take a look at the scenario and immediate surroundings.

From this distance I can't hear them at all. There's no way to tell what they're doing besides body language and posture. It's almost noon now and the shadows will be shorter, but it doesn't look like I'd have to trap anyone besides the Waterfall shinobi, so that won't be an issue. If I move in closer to hear them, I might run the risk of revealing my position by accident, but if that were to happen, Kankuro would throw the smoke bomb and we could set the plan in motion. In fact even without the plan he's just one shinobi who looks like chuunin level, and we could easily outnumber him if we had to. At least we can rest easy that there's no immediate risk of being killed, even though that seemed unlikely to begin with.

Yes, the advantages easily outweigh the disadvantages, I'll risk getting a bit closer to hear them. I start crawling over the forest floor rather carefully. It's hard to tell how aware the shinobi is, I'm approaching him from behind. Getting him caught in a shadow imitation technique is still an option available to me that I have to seriously consider. I also have to consider that at any time, one of my team members could lose patience and reveal themselves, so I have to stay on my toes to back them up if I have to. I'm close enough to hear voices now. I'll wait here for a while and try to eavesdrop and find out if they either know we're here or try to find out why they're here in the middle of nowhere.

"We're not making good time, these endless forests are hard to move in! It's disorienting and there's bugs everywhere! Tell us again why we can't use the main roads?!" He's right, for shinobi it's easy but for people on foot who avoid main roads, it's hard to move around in these great forests of ours. This civilian is an older man, somewhat skinny and balding. Judging by the way he speaks up I'd say he's the leader of the group of civilians.

"Calm down old man, we're about halfway. I don't want to put up with complaints for the rest of the journey." It may be too early to tell, but it sounds like this shinobi was hired by the civilians. They made a poor choice, he's the one with the killer intent we felt a while ago, and they can't sense it. By the sound of it, it looks like he's escorting them. There is an uneasy silence between them now. That doesn't help me, I still have no idea what they're up to.

What the hell? Someone has appeared out of the blue! Who is that? I've seen his face before and it looks like he's levitating above the ground, There's no feet touching the ground from under the black robe he's wearing. Sort of young and fragile looking but there's something very wrong. He looks human, but I can't describe it, it's hollow. If anything it looks a little like a puppet..

Now I get it. I know now why he looks familiar, it's Sasori, I must have seen his profile in the bingo book at some point. So that's what Kankuro meant when he gave me that troublesome crappy answer to my question about his new techniques. He must have recreated Sasori as a puppet. It actually makes so much sense, even in a theatrical dramatic sort of way, now that I think about it. How could I have missed it, it should have been obvious to me.

With a puppet like this, it's like an instant boost in ability and power, if he controls it well enough. Involuntarily I can't help but grin at this, he's using his ace right at the start, that's very cocky and foolish. Unless of course his preparation is more than just this one puppet, according to the report, the battlefield was riddled with broken puppets. He might have a few more puppets available to him. It'll be a pain but I'll definitely have to ask him again what his arsenal is like when this is over.

The shinobi is startled and goes into defensive position, all his attention is on the puppet now. The civilians are also backing away. Does Kankuro want me to capture him from behind? I could do it, but this is not at all according to plan. Izumo and Kotetsu must be wondering the same thing, this is all very annoying. Even so, the attack formation isn't wasted yet, if I catch him we can proceed as planned.

"How are you, gentlemen?" the Sasori puppet speaks. It's obviously Kankuro's voice. During the first round of the chuunin exams he spoke remotely through his puppet disguised as examiner. It makes sense that he's also a good ventriloquist and I have to admit, it does come in handy in this situation. Even so, his choice of words is a little strange.

"What's going on? Who are you?!" the Shinobi seems off balance by this situation. He must not have noticed our presence up to now. His guard was probably down and now he realises he's in a bad situation. I hope Kankuro won't do anything stupid.

"I will be the one asking the questions. Last time I checked this wasn't waterfall country, what are you doing so far from home?" I see now what Kankuro is up to, he's going to extract information from them using a humanoid puppet. All things considered, it's a smart move, but a bit of a pain because he's improvising. However at this rate it's going to end in a fight, the Sasori puppet, though it may look like a kid, it has a creepy and threatening aura.

That's it! His killing intent is flaring again, I have to catch him now before he attacks! I do the required seals without thinking, it's second nature to me. I focus on the shinobi's shadow and guide my chakra through my own extending shadow. He hasn't noticed it yet. There it is, contact! I immediately feel the pressure from restraining a full grown man's movements. This is also a good way for me to measure his power by the pressure I'm feeling, and he seems average. Nothing I cannot handle. I get up on one knee, with my hands still in the position of the final seal I made.

"Shadow Imitation technique, successful."

As if on cue, on my left Izumo jumps out. He uses the syrup capture field, although he doesn't go through the trouble of saying the whole name of the jutsu. Some shinobi say the moves out loud, some don't. I do it, to confirm it to my team members. Offensive jutsu don't really require it, if they go well, the results speak for themselves, but the more flamboyant types will say it anyway. I look at the group of civilians, at least they're unharmed. This is good, we completely have the upper hand and we still have Kotetsu and Kankuro hiding.

"Hey! Let us go! We're not doing anything wrong!" The older guy from the civilians starts shouting at Izumo.

"What are a waterfall shinobi and a bunch of weird looking guys doing out here in Fire country?" Izumo asks in a slightly less demanding way. Kankuro already asked the same question to the waterfall ninja, but maybe the old guy is more willing to answer.

"Oh good you're from Konoha! We're seeking refuge!"

Izumo apprehensively crosses his arms when hearing this. It's certainly unexpected. The old man continues.

"The daimyo has passed away recently and the struggle for power has thrown the Rice field country in a state of civil war." That's certainly a shocking discovery. We only recently learned that Rain country had been in a long civil war for years, in which Pein had won. And now there is another nation in civil war, our political world is slowly becoming less stable. Not to mention something is wrong on the border of Earth and Grass as well. We quickly have eye contact, and it seems Izumo is thinking something similar as I am. The old man continues. "Our house has requested help from Takigakure to protect us as we claim the position of daimyo, because we are entitled by blood to inherit it. You see, the members of our house are being killed one by one, and now our escape to Takigakure has become impossible, because Earth country soldiers are invading Rice field. We decided to find refuge in Konoha!"

It seems that the power vacuum after Orochimaru's death and now their daimyo has gotten more hidden villages to consider taking over hidden sound. Having a satellite outpost in another country is definitely an advantage worth that risk. These aristocrats will be puppets to Takigakure if they inherit the daimyo title. They will be forced to elect a hidden Waterfall shinobi to lead the Hidden sound.

This explains why the shinobi here seems to dislike these civilians. He must know they're going to eventually use them for their own goals. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the house members that are being killed, would be killed by the very employers they hired. Looks like Earth country is thinking something similar to Takigakure, they have already made their move to seize power.

I doubt Tsunade is aware of any of this. We had broken most contact with Rice field country a few years ago when we found out they had been harbouring Orochimaru, this was perhaps unwise, now we're the last to react in an international problem. I wonder how much Kankuro knows about this as well.

But something is bothering me. Earth country is moving on the border with Grass country and now as it turns out they're active in Rice field as well? I'll have to discuss this later with the others. Earth country might be getting ambitious. And if there's one thing I don't like, it's when people get ambitions that get in the way of other people.

We decide to talk it out, and we undo the restraints. Kotetsu and Kankuro now also reveal themselves. The Takigakure shinobi is visibly shocked that there were four of us, as I suspected he's not extremely skilled after all. We take a seat on the ground, as does the self appointed leader of these civilians. Kankuro might be the team leader but the affairs of Konoha don't directly involve him, so I have to make the call. He finds an open spot to put the puppet back into his scroll. While he does that, us three Konoha ninja are starting to work out what has to be done.

"What do we do with these guys then?" asks Kotetsu. Izumo jumps in. "Should we send them to Konoha? And what about the waterfall guy?"

I need to consider this. Ideally we'd need someone to escort them, because just sending them on their way with a foreign shinobi, that might get troublesome. Besides he doesn't seem to know the way because they're way off track. On the other hand our mission is very important and we don't have the luxury of losing a team member. Perhaps they're better off if we take them with us to Hidden Grass and from there we get a messenger bird to relay this information to Tsunade. They should be safe there and it would be the least amount of trouble for us.

"No we won't send them to Konoha, we'll bring them along to Hidden Grass where we have an appointment anyway. Grass is technically an ally of Konoha, you should be safe there. It's not that much further than Konoha from here anyway, it seems you guys were going in the wrong direction to begin with."

"We were?" Some of the civilians are mumbling about something. Something is wrong here. Why didn't they know about this? They were lead to believe they were sent to Konoha, but they're staying away from main roads, and closer to the north-western borders. Closer to the border with Waterfall country. The pieces of the puzzle fall into place. I get it, they were lured out here in the middle of nowhere, days away from civilisation. It can only mean one thing, my suspicions were right and it was after all Takigakure that was killing off members of the house to scare them into giving them the mission to protect them. The Takigakure guy is leaning against a tree, listening to the conversation. He must know that we're starting to figure him out.

I look him in the eye, he knows that I know. A wicked smile appears on his face, he's up to something. A lot of things can happen in a matter of seconds. It's not the pace I like best, you have to make decisions on instinct and you don't have time to think things through. He knows that I know, he knows my team members don't know, and he's about to make a move. He's putting up one hand and pointing two fingers upwards. I know that seal, it's the same one that Izumo and Kotetsu used in the library yesterday, he's going to teleport out of here. I dive to catch him and interrupt him, but I find myself landing in a pile of leaves and dirt on the ground.

He escaped. So he was more skilled than I thought after all.

"What the heck is going on Shikamaru?!" Kotetsu says as he gets up. He and Izumo are completely surprised by what just happened. Kankuro just finished putting Sasori back in the scroll, and is walking our way, apparently he finds it somewhat amusing, judging by his expression.

"Man, what a drag.. I'll explain it later." I say as I get up and dust off. I definitely need a cigarette right now.

* * *

I'm going away on holiday for about two weeks, so don't expect an update this month.


	6. Without wavering

Alright readers, I'm back from my holidays and when I got back I originally had written a large portion of the chapter where shikamaru reads hidan's entry in the bingo book, but with the release of the new databook and the new info on hidan, I could pretty much throw what I had out the window and had to redo the chapter from scratch XD

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Because we have to escort a group of civilians to the Hidden Grass now, we're walking on the main roads instead of jumping through the forest. Thankfully we can afford the slower pace because we're close to the Hidden Grass already and had accounted for delays before we left. Certainly these civilians aren't the most endearing group I've ever met, but they're quiet enough, so this journey is turning out to be pretty enjoyable so far. I can almost relax were it not for the fact that Earth and Waterfall shinobi want to kill these aristocrats we're escorting. Better to enjoy the moment, after all we're having a stroll through the forest, the clouds are nice and there's relaxing sounds of insects and rustling of leaves.

"Yugao has this graceful elegance about her that's pretty attractive."

And of course there's the sounds of my team members talking.

"Yeah that's true, but on the other hand I bet Anko is a tiger in the sack!"

"Definitely, that settles it. Anko wins."

I didn't hear their whole conversation but it's obvious Izumo and Kotetsu are discussing and comparing the female shinobi in the village again. It's an entertaining habit of theirs to listen in on. When they're on long missions or on guard duty at the gate they have to make up all kinds of things to pass the time. Although not exactly respectful, it's harmless enough. In fact, I'm pretty sure the women of Konoha are much worse in that respect. Men are naturally more inclined to competitive behaviour in all things, but women easily exceed them when it comes to troublesome things like love interests.

"Hey Shikamaru, help us out here, out of ten points, how would you rate Shizune? Izumo says six but I'm leaning more towards a seven or even eight."

Tsk, how troublesome, I was kinda hoping they'd leave me out of their conversation. Involuntarily I rub my temple as I accept the fact that I can't escape from joining in now without looking uncool. Don't they know how awkward this is? They always discuss women way older than me. Not that I have anything against older girls, but someone like Shizune could almost be my mother in age. I'm getting impatient looks from Kotetsu and Izumo, I guess I should answer them and be done with it.

"Let's see, she's not too ugly and not too pretty either, and definitely doesn't have a troublesome personality, so she could make a guy pretty happy, I'd say eight points!" I declare as I hold up a finger just like Iruka did when he explained us some basic jutsu fundamentals to us. Even though I think I wasn't being very disrespectful, I can see the aristocrats we're escorting don't approve of this sort of conversation, judging by the looks they're giving us. I suppose they must think we're hopeless skirt chasers or something. We're the best they have right now to rely on, so they won't cause trouble about it though. We live in totally different worlds.

"Not bad, not bad. Maybe we should ask Kankuro as well, just to be sure?" Says Kotetsu as if he's up to something.

"Hey! Kankuro, get over here, we have to ask you something!" Izumo shouts at Kankuro who had been walking in the front most of the time. He's being surprisingly professional during this mission, I guess he has the same worries about all our recent findings as I have. Still, I have the feeling there might be more to it than just wanting to do the mission as well as we can.

"What do you want?" Kankuro declares in a stoic fashion that would pass easily as something Shino could have said.

"Ahh, well you see we have this disagreement and we need your valued opinion on the matter." Izumo sure knows how to sugar coat it. Kotetsu continues.

"Yeah, remember Tsunade's assistant? The one holding the pig?"

"Six."

"Oh you could hear us?" Kotetsu says as he rubs the back of is head apologetically, a little embarrassed that he talked so loud that Kankuro could overhear the conversation.

"Yeah, most of it. Look sharp, I think we crossed into Grass country a few minutes ago."

Grass country, true to the name, the scenery is very attractive, big open fields, with rolling hills and lots of interesting flora everywhere. If it weren't for the road being a sign of civilisation I would describe the land as untamed. The sky is a little grey though, it's too bad the clouds are so dull here, all stretched out and high up in the sky because of strong winds. Considering the thick vegetation and the darker clouds, it must rain a lot here in Grass country.

We walk for hours, over open fields, although we're in plain sight, we can also easily see people who would sneak up on us. Besides the whole business with this group of people we have to escort, the trip was pretty uneventful, thankfully. With a little luck we might even get a good night's sleep when we get there, before we really get started on the mission. I've never actually been to Hidden Grass, or Kusagakure as they call it here, it'll be interesting to see a little of the culture in other nations.

Wait, there's something in the air. It's subtle, but something doesn't seem exactly right. Trust your intuition. Izumo and Kotetsu are happily continuing their conversation, so they haven't noticed. Kankuro seems to have picked up on it as well, he's looking around like I am. What's going on? At face value everything seems and feels normal, but why can't I shake this feeling that I'm missing something? Are we in a genjutsu?

"Kankuro, do you-"

"Yeah, it's the same but it's not the same."

From what I read in one of my father's books, there's life and energy in all things, even small pebbles or drops of water. For example, sage jutsu rely on that chakra instead of your own, and usually to use them you need an amplifier of some sorts to be able to 'feel' the world, but all living creatures feel it a little, if only on a subconscious level. This is what makes people feel in tune with the world, our spiritual connection to all living things around us keeps us grounded to it. I think the best way to describe what's going on, is that the world feels like a superficial shell of what it's supposed to be like. As if that energy is missing. It's not unlike the feeling you get when you're being watched, but it's everywhere.

As we keep walking, the feeling intensifies. Izumo and Kotetsu have also picked up on it. They stopped talking, and Kotetsu is keeping his hand near his pouch to reach for stuff if he has to. The stronger it gets, the more sinister this lack of life becomes. The vegetation seems alive, and the sunlight reflects on the drops of water on the grass, there's insects buzzing in the air, but although we can see it, it doesn't feel right. Definitely a genjutsu. Someone made a very elaborate and nearly believable illusion, except that it's cold and inhuman somehow. I'm no expert but this seems like very high level genjutsu, it gradually became more intense, so we walked right in, and now it's everywhere, engulfing us, yet subtle and refined. We were probably in the genjutsu long before we even realised it. Very clever, I would admire it if it weren't for the fact that it's such a drag that we have to find some way out of this.

"Guys do we keep walking and ignoring this?" Kotetsu asks, a little nervous. Not so much scared, but more jumpy. Can't blame him, we could be watched at this very moment. The aristocrats aren't trained to feel chakra, so they don't feel it, but they know something is up because we're all nervous.

A kunai! I let myself fall to the ground to dodge it. It whizzed right past me. Kotetsu almost immediately throws a shuriken back at where the kunai came from, but as expected, it doesn't hit anything. It looked like it came out of thin air, we're supposed to be on an open field, so this confirms we're in an illusion.

"You okay?" Izumo asks me.

"I'm fine, we need to protect the civilians."

"Standard circle cover formation!" Kankuro shouts. It's a simple concept, and one of the most basic formations, but that's a good choice in this situation, we could be surrounded and we have people to protect. The circle formation means you each cover a part of the imaginary circle around the object or people you have to protect, standing with your back to the centre of the circle. It's so basic, people from different villages who have had different training methods, they have all learned this formation.

Another kunai, this time aimed at the elder of the aristocrats. It came from Kankuro's side, but he deflected it with a projectile of his own. This situation is bad, eventually we will be worn down. We need to break the illusion. I could disrupt the chakra for all of us, I'm the most adept at dealing with genjutsu here, but that would leave me vulnerable because I'll have to use up nearly all of my chakra.

"Izumo, Kotetsu, cover for my spot, I have a plan!"

"Got it!"

"Just hurry!"

This time two kunai were thrown. Kankuro managed to deflect one, but judging by the sudden scream, one of the civilians must have been hit by the other.

No time to waste, I reach in my pouch for a soldier pill. These have become standard issue over the years, and can push your limits for a bit. It's not exactly healthy though and uncomfortably close to being a drug, but sometimes you just need the extra chakra. Ehh how troublesome, I didn't feel like organising my equipment and just threw it in the pouch, it's a mess. Ah I found it!

Ow! Crap! I got cut in the side. Thankfully flak jacket deflected most of the direct damage. Whoever is throwing these kunai must be moving because they're not thrown accurately at vital points. But it'll wear us down if takes a little longer. I can hear another of the civilians screaming behind me. He must also have been hit. Without a moment's hesitation, I swallow the soldier pill. The surge of energy is almost instantaneous, it actually feels pretty great but I hear you can get addicted to it, and I can see why. Okay I have work to do. Two, three hand seals. Al right, now gather up all the chakra I can. Concentrate, concentrate. Imagine a single spot in a void, just like Iruka told us.

It's hard to concentrate when people behind me are being hit by indiscriminately thrown kunai. It's like they're thrown at the general area where the civilians are, perhaps the opponent has poor eyesight. Regardless of the screaming that makes it hard to concentrate, I seem to be able to produce a good amount of chakra. Only a few more seconds for a sufficient amount of chakra to release. Hands are still in the ram seal position. I have to close my eyes to concentrate more for this to work.

"Release!" I let out a few bursts of chakra to disrupt our body's chakra systems to end the genjutsu. Slowly I open my eyes. I feel exhausted already, I'm not used to releasing this much chakra outside of my body, but in this case I had to cover for the others while they covered me. So the illusion was very believable after all, the environment looks exactly the same as before, except for a few minor differences. The most obvious one is the cause of all this problem, a shinobi standing 15 meters in front of us. His stance is relaxed and not aggressive or defensive at all. Either he is very skilled and doesn't fear the prospect of fighting 4 strong guys, or he's plain stupid.

I should have known, an Iwagakure shinobi. Hidden Rock from Earth nation. It makes sense that they would go after the aristocrats, Takigakure was also out to assassinate most of them, under the pretext of protecting them from Earth nation. It seems that they did speak at least half the truth. There is still the possibility that he isn't after the aristocrats, but that he is part of the issue of the Earth nation troops stationed on the border, that we were asked to investigate in the first place. This guy is weird though, he wears standard equipment and a hidden earth flak jacket, but his face is covered in beige bandages and wears his Iwakagure headband over his mouth. From what I can see of his face under the bandages, it's unnaturally red and there's scars, like on Ibiki's head.

And his eyes, how is this possible? Are they, sharingan?

How did Hidden Rock get their hands on it? And how did they transplant a bloodline limit? It's a troublesome situation but I suppose at least this confirms the reports of the Anbu, about bloodline limits being stolen, we got before we started the mission. As a shinobi, the thing that worries me the most right now is that there's only this creepy sharingan guy, where is his team?

"Behind us!" Kotetsu shouts as he jumps and turns mid-air to face this new opponent he sensed. I take a quick look. He's also covered in bandages, his entire face is covered like a mummy and he is also not really assuming a stance. I'm getting a bad feeling about this. All signs point to us being trapped. Alright, Kotetsu can cover that end, the sharingan guy was standing closer to me, he's my opponent.

Speaking of which, when I look back after checking out the guy that appeared behind me, my opponent seems to have vanished into thin air.

"Shikam-" I can just hear Kankuro yelling some sort of warning, but before he gets a chance to finish his sentence, I feel mean right hand hook connecting to my jaw and I get sent flying.

I never even saw it coming, he's seriously fast, I can't hold a candle to it. I try to get up but I'm still dizzy from the impact and not to mention I drained most of my chakra to undo the genjutsu. This time I can sort of hear the grass moving, I know something is coming, and I quickly hold out my arms in a defensive position. It's probably in vain but in moments like these training routines pay off and take over automatically.

In my already disoriented state I see a shadow and hear a loud crack. For a split second I think I could it be hit but haven't realised it yet. Thankfully that's not the case. Karasu, Kankuro's oldest puppet is hovering in front of me, and by the sound of it, he grabbed the Iwagakure shinobi. I try and stand up as best I can. There's nothing physically wrong with me besides being drained and just gotten punched, I'm only dizzy. The Iawagakure guy is making noises trying to struggle out of Karasu's grip, but with that many arms that don't feel pain, it's not as easy as it seems. Seizing the opportunity I grab a kunai from my holster and plant it in his stomach. I have to push hard to get through the jacket, but immediately I feel the lukewarm blood on my hand and wrist. He's not really making any noise, perhaps that's why he wears his headband over his mouth, but I know he's hurting, I can feel his body trembling, because the kunai is trembling too.

"Do I let go or what?" Kankuro asks from a distance. He's also controlling Kuroari, his trapping puppet at the same time. Kotetsu, Izumo and Kuroari are busy fighting the mummy guy, who turns out to be extremely nimble. Puppet masters sure need to multi task a lot in a battle.

"No, hold him like this for a while! It's a drag but I need to ask him some questions!"

I take a kunai in my other hand and get it to his throat. The other hand is still pushing a kunai in his stomach. I keep telling myself not to look him in the eye, especially from this distance I could easily be caught in an eye technique. Fighting a sharingan user comes with it's own set of rules. I'll have to put him under pressure to make him answer some questions I have, it's not my style, but some things are too important to let personal preferences get in the way.

"Answer me, how did you acquire the sharingan?" I whisper in his ear, or at least, where I think his ear is located under those bandages.

"I won't answer. I'll find strength in my loyalty to Iwagakure, without wavering, to endure your tortures." What a strange choice of words. And his voice sounds raspy and broken. I was never going to capture and torture him. There is simply not time, unfortunately for him he only had one chance. He leaves me no choice, and I push the kunai further in. He starts shaking a bit, but still constrained by Karasu. I feel chills running up my spine, I can already feel his flesh on my fingers, so the kunai is in so deep that by now it's a mortal wound for sure. The forehead protector over his mouth is covered in blood as well, he must be coughing up blood. Whatever I say to him now, it's the last words he'll ever hear. Somewhere in my mind I wonder what kind of life he lived that I so arrogantly will have to end now.

It's the way of the shinobi, he would have done the same to me, in a way I feel sorry for his loss, but I have no regrets.

"Any last words?" I whisper, my voice is more neutral now, we both know there's no point to talking tough now, it's just a matter of seconds. He's staying alive by sheer force of will now, I can feel his pulse in his neck is already going slower and he has already given up struggling to get away.

"As a reward for defeating me.. I'll tell you.. I'll tell you that these eyes, were found on the remains of shinobi killed in the third.. shinobi.. ..war." he struggles with his last words to finish his sentence but I got the message. Dignifying end of a shinobi, rewarding the person who defeated you. It's unorthodox but there's something to it that makes a kill like this, that is supposed to be all business, more personal, more of an exchange between two people. With that thought, I push both kunai and I feel his body go limp. Karasu drops the body on the ground. I can see the mummy guy was taken down by Izumo and Kotetsu, good for them. Kankuro is handling the civilians, I can't tell from over here but a few of them may have been killed unfortunately. Even though I'm still somewhat dizzy and covered in blood by now, I look up to the sky and the clouds, my constantly present partners. I reach for my cigarettes and light one of them. My hands are shaking, probably a combination of being low on chakra and that punch I received. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to calm down my nerves. This unknown shinobi I just killed, in my mind I ask him, _have you now become one of the clouds up in the sky, and can you see me from up there?_


	7. Kankuro

Hey everyone, I'm back. This chapter is a little different, you'll soon find out why. I won't make this a very regular thing, but it's nice to have a change of pace from time to time, makes reading a story feel less of a grind when it's not the same thing all the time.

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Karasu is covered in blood thanks to Shikamaru. You'd think he could have been more considerate, doesn't he know how much work it is to do maintenance on these puppets? I guess I'll let it slide this time, it was thanks to him that we got out of the genjutsu, after all. Even so I'll have to clean them quickly, last thing I want is for my weapons to smell like blood. The smell of blood still reminds me of Gaara's sand I feared for so long. It's almost nauseating if you're too close to it, even when you're not targeted.

That kid, now he's staring up in the sky again, smoking a cigarette, looks like he's lost in thought. How can he be so focussed in battle and so detached immediately afterwards? I'll never understand him, in some ways he's even harder to read than that Shino who is completely impassive.

Those other two guys, that Kotetsu and Izumo, they're actually pretty impressive. I know Konoha has strong shinobi just like we do, but there's always this stereotype of them being emotionally weaker, more susceptible to losing sight of the objectives. After all it's a widely known fact that they have the highest number of missing nin in the world, and all their important figures have turned out to be morally self-righteous. Their so called will of fire, I would take my unquestioned loyalty for Suna over it any day of the week. They all have different things to fight for and to live for, but we all live and die for the same thing and in this we are more united. I suppose this is why I'm so surprised about the way this team works, they had no hesitation and no qualms about killing the enemy. If I had been stuck with that Naruto kid for this mission he'd probably have blabbered on about keeping them alive, like a little boy. Gaara may be impressed by that because it's so radically different to his nature, but I'm not, the only thing that Naruto has impressed me with is the effect he has on my brother.

"Hey Kankuro.." apparently Shikamaru has something to say. Looks like he's trying to find the right words to say it. This better not be about Temari again. I thought we sort of agreed not to talk about that.

"What?" It probably sounded meaner than I intended to. Whatever, I won't lose sleep over it.

"It's a drag, but thanks for saving me back there, I guess.." Jeez, even when he's thanking me he does it half-assed.

"Meh, don't think too much about it, we all did our part, as did you." It's true, I most probably couldn't have cancelled the genjutsu myself. That's why teamwork is important, at least we're good at that.

Izumo and one of the aristocrats are walking over. He seems to be the youngest of the group by far, I'd guess he's at least four or five years younger than Shikamaru. Dressed in the same white robe as the others and with his hair cut short.

"Kankuro, the civilians are wounded, we need to do something about this." Izumo tells me as he brushes his hair out of his face. I noticed he does that a lot, it's stupid if you ask me.

"Can they walk?" I know they can't, but I'm stalling so I can think of something.

"No, and it looks like that old geezer was killed in the-" Izumo is telling me about the annoying elder aristocrat, when he gets interrupted by the kid.

"I gracefully implore you to use the proper honorifics when addressing my most esteemed grandfather, now that he has passed away." The kid says as he slightly bows his head. Oh man, I don't like brats but this kid gets on my nerves already. What kind of way to talk is that?

Izumo is a bigger man than I am when it comes to this, he shrugs his shoulders and with a sigh continues his report.

"It seems the elder of the group was fatally hit by one of the kunai during the fight." Not exactly using honorifics but at least you could say he's a little more respectful. I don't see why we have to do this just because of some annoying brat.

"Also two others were wounded and won't be able to walk to Kusagakure." Kotetsu says as he approaches us, still carrying a massive mace over his shoulder that he summoned during the fight.

If it were up to me we would never have taken these guys along with us, but Gaara made it clear to me that I wasn't supposed to cause problems, and the others think it's important to escort them, so I agreed to their plan. I just think dragging these civilians along with us makes the mission unnecessarily complicated. At least when we get to Kusagakure we can dump them there and be done with it.

"Let's not forget, they could be attacked again so we need to guard them. Perhaps if we send someone ahead to Kusagakure?" Damn. Shikamaru is right, if we leave them here and have some Grass nin pick them up later they could have been attacked when they were unguarded. I'm the strongest here, but I'm expected at the rendezvous point with the contact person so I can't stay behind.

"I see, in that case I'll go up ahead and send for help, you guys stay here and keep an eye on them."

Kotetsu and Izumo nod. Almost at the same time as well. It's creepy.

Shikamaru starts yawning and stretching his arms. "In that case I'll go take a nap."

Oh no you don't. I slap him on the back of his head. I have to say it's gratifying to slap him when he gets lazy.

"You're coming with me, just out of spite. And that's an order." I tell him.

"Man, what a drag.." From his defeated expression I can tell he obviously sees I have a wicked grin on my face.

That felt good. I'll have to put up with him but I'm pretty sure he's even more unhappy about it than I am. He's easygoing and not actively looking for trouble, but something about him just rubs me the wrong way. It's no mystery to me what that certain something is, of course.

I just don't get it, it's not like they openly flirt or hold hands or anything disturbing like that, but we all know it, they know it, it's just unavoidable, for years we all knew it would come to this eventually. Gaara seems to be okay with whatever is going on between them too. In fact he said he respects him. I guess I just can't see it, nor can I see why Gaara feels that way.

Did they run into each other back when in the days when Gaara was still troubled? Something happened between them that I don't know about? That seems unlikely though, because after all, Shikamaru is alive right now, so that pretty much guarantees they didn't have a run in, Gaara would have crushed him.

We've been walking for a little while now. We have already entered the forest in which their hidden village is located, the scenery changed from wild tundra-like to a sort of archaic forest with trees that rise up to the sky. The trees are not as thick as in Fire nation, but at least three or four times higher with less branches. Which is more impressive to look at. However the lack of sturdy branches makes it harder to jump through the forest, and we're forced to walk on the ground.

This is boring, and Shikamaru's not very good company. He's just looking around at stuff, not even paying attention for dangers. He's just looking around like a tourist. I'll ask him about Gaara, since I want to know. After all why would Gaara respect him?

"Hey kid, how well do you know Gaara?" I can see he didn't expect a question like this coming. Playing with people like this, making them guess what's going on, it's so satisfying, in more than one way I'm a puppet master.

"Ehh.. I know him a little. Why do you ask?"

"No particular reason really, I was just wondering, did you ever fight Gaara?"

"No seriously, why do you ask? This is unlike you."

That little son of a.. he's not playing along like he's supposed to. No matter, there's some string to pull to make him say what I want to hear. I'll try to make it look like he's thinking too deeply about it. Since the kid is supposed to be so smart, this sort of thing probably happens more often to him.

"Jeez, I'm just making conversation, dude. No need to be so uptight." I can see it worked. He's got this sort of indifferent look about him now.

"I see, well, I didn't exactly fight him, but he did threaten to kill me." Not exactly, huh? That's strange. I better pry a little more.

"Yeah that sounds like Gaara, al right. What did you do? Bump into him by accident or something?"

"Something like that. But now that we're on the subject, how well do you know Gaara?" What the hell is that supposed to mean?

"He's my brother you know..." Yeah he just rubs me the wrong way this kid. Of course he knows, so what's he getting at?

"What I mean is, Gaara is different now compared to a few years ago, how do you deal with that?"

That's interesting, it's still a process that happened over the course of a few years, it's not like he changed overnight. Never really thought about it being difficult to adapt to Gaara's change.

"Well.. I suppose it's better now, but I still don't like kids because of him."

"Like that aristocrat's kid? I could see you were annoyed by him."

"Heh, yeah kids don't know much about the world, they are unpredictable, and are irrational."

"So they're harder for you to manipulate, is that it?" Damn, so he can see right through me, after all. This sucks.

"That's not really it, it's more their attitude. It's disproportionate, you know? Either extremely energetic, or angry, or polite, there's never normal kids in the world." Even though he hit the nail on the head, with the comment about manipulating, this is also true.

"Well, he just lost relatives of his, all things considered, I think he was pretty brave to do such a troublesome thing and point out you two were disrespectful."

Honestly I hadn't thought about it that way. Damn Konoha nin, they always make you feel bad with their moral superiority attitude. But he's right though, that actually must have been difficult for the little kid, and I didn't even notice it, he was actually a little brave to speak up to us. We must be pretty intimidating to a spoiled brat like him too.

And to add insult to injury, Shikamaru made me realize something other than what I wanted to know. He beat me at my own game and took over the conversation. Maybe that's what Gaara meant when he said he respected him, it's not the fighting ability, but it's how he understands people.

"Looks like you finally made it, but there's only two of you?" An unfamiliar third voice tells us.

It must be the contact person. Where is it coming from? There's no village here? Only trees. Oh, I see. Both Shikamaru and myself realize at the same time the village is not actually located on the ground, but it's up in the trees, and we look up.

It's a clever system, the trees are too thin to have branches strong enough to travel on, so we are forced to walk on the ground for a while, and so we don't notice the village overhead. Truly Kusagakure is also a hidden village.

The contact person is standing on a balcony next to a rope ladder which is probably the entrance to the village. It must be tough to get supplies into the village. He looks like most Grass nin do, light hair, a flack jacket, goggles and some sort of scarf hanging loosely around his neck.

I better do the talking, I'm the team leader. Just be careful not to insult any Grass nin and it should be alright.

"We ran into some trouble on the way here, and we also ran into political refugees, that two of us are guarding at the moment because these refugees are incapacitated. They require medical attention."

"Ah that is most unfortunate, but it will be taken care of. Why don't you come up here while you wait for them? You are after all, diplomatic guests, so I can allow entry to the village."

That's more like it. Maybe now this mission can finally start. I just have to remember they hadn't told us all the details for this mission they requested, we only learned of them because the Hokage told us, so these Grass nin probably don't trust us. That's fine, I'm used to that. It will be interesting to see how much details on the mission our contact person will give us. This should be a good indication of the situation.

Kusagakure has a certain aesthetic appeal to it, the small patches of light that shine through thick canopy of trees overhead, make the village feel vibrant and even protected from sight. Most houses are made mostly of wood, but it's hard to get a good grasp of how large the village is, since it extends in three dimensions. There's buildings above and below us as we follow the contact person over a few bridges. Shikamaru is trailing behind us with his hands in his pockets, smoking a cigarette and probably lost in his own little world.

"So you're from Suna and the kid over there is from Konoha, right?"

"Yeah, what about it? You know the Kazekage forwarded the mission to Konoha, don't you?"

"Yes, yes, that's right, but there was another group of travellers that passed by the village a few days ago. They also seemed to be a mixed group about your age, from various villages."

I'm not sure why I have to care but I might as well talk to him, I might get him to argue with me.

"Were they now? Where did they come from?"

"Hard to say, one of them was obviously from the Nation of Water, possibly from Kirigakure. The other I recognised as a missing nin."

"Oh? Is that so? Why didn't you capture him?"

"Well, we didn't even try to, Konoha hasn't ordered a death penalty on him, so we decided not to bother."

"Konoha, huh? How typical, always with their missing nin."

This did grab Shikamaru's attention, however. He actually seems more interested than I thought he would have been.

"What did he look like? Sort of pale and arrogant looking pretty boy with dark hair?" I understand immediately, he's describing that Sasuke kid from that mission three years ago. I guess it was a pretty big deal for them.

"Actually, yes that's a spot on description. Is he a friend of yours, or something?" The contact says, oblivious to the impact of this information. Shikamaru looks like he's in deep thought, yeah it was a pretty big event for Konoha, al right.

"When did they pass here exactly, and do you know where they were going to?" I suppose I can throw him a bone and ask a few helpful questions too. Truth be told it did always sit badly with me that we didn't succeed in that mission, I have my pride too. It's a little personal for me too.

"No more than a few days ago, they were heading to Earth nation. Maybe you'll find them there when you're on your mission. The one we are paying you for." He added that last part because he must think we consider Sasuke a bigger priority.

He's right, getting on Sasuke's trail isn't our mission. If we find him, then that'll be satisfying, but if we don't, so be it.

"Don't worry we'll do the B ranked mission that you paid us for. And no more." I add my own little emphasis, letting him know that we can drop the mission if it turns out we got more than we bargained for.

After waiting a little while in the village, Izumo and Kotetsu, and a bunch of miserable looking wounded aristocrats join us. Looks like nothing happened to them. While we were waiting, Shikamaru had been writing the report that would be sent to Konoha. I'm sure they'll forward a copy to Gaara about the situation, but we actually found out about the civil war in Rice field country a few months ago through our contacts.

We'll catch some sleep, and tomorrow we'll head towards Earth nation. It looks like Earth nation is involved in many things, and now Sasuke makes an appearance as well, things are looking interesting. We're bound to get a few exciting moments out of it. Shikamaru also seems to think so, he looks pretty nervous, staring at the roof of the forest and fidgeting with his lighter. Wonder what goes on in that head of his.

* * *

Alright, so in case you are unbelievably stupid and missed it, this was from Kankuro's perspective. I tried to make him somewhat clever but not quite the same level as Shikamaru, and rough around the edges. The big plot twist at the end is just because I liked the idea from chapter 1 of chasing and confronting Sasuke. Doing this from Kankuro's perspective is a novel idea, Sasuke's defection is always seen from people who have invested emotionally in him. Kankuro however doesn't care much for him and just considers this a failed mission of his. This is a different kind of motivation than what we usually see, so I thought it would be worthwhile to make this revelation in the Kankuro chapter. We'll see how it turns out, won't we? Next chapters will be more familiar from Shikamaru's perspective.


	8. The irony of waking up early

All of us do missions regularly, but it just had to be me, didn't it? I talked about it with Izumo and Kotetsu, and they think the closest Konoha nin are at least days away from our position, so it's up to us to stick around and capture Sasuke. Even if the B-ranked mission we signed up for turns out to be impossible, we can't leave this area without trying to find Sasuke. Just when I thought the encounter with those Hidden Rock nin was the worst that would happen on this mission, this just had to happen. Kankuro looked like he was actually enjoying the prospect of fighting Sasuke, but by contrast I'm mostly worried.

I'm pretty sure I can hold off someone of Sasuke's level for a little while at least. In fact, him especially, since he has never seen my techniques before. He didn't see it when we were in the forest of death, because he was unconscious, and not preliminary exams, Kakashi took him to some room. During the chuunin finals, he was late and missed my match entirely. During the invasion I never got to catch up to him, and when we tried to rescue him, I also had to stay back. I can use this to my advantage if I'm extremely cautious. The thing I'm worried about, is everything else besides Sasuke that we don't know yet. From what I heard he's travelling with some group, so it's a safe bet he's probably accompanied by the elite from the remnants of Orochimaru's organisation. I'll have a look in the bingo book later to get an impression of the level they could be on.

Kankuro is snoring again rather loudly. All four of us were given a small room here in Hidden Grass, that we have to share. It's troublesome, because all three of them are snoring, and don't seem to be bothered too much by it. Izumo and Kotetsu actually take turns to snore. I'm not sure whether or not to be amused or disturbed out by this. I'll settle for the first. Since I'm not going to get much sleep, I might as well get up now and take a walk through the village. Obviously my movement is restricted a lot, a foreign nin walking around at night would look very suspicious, and people could get troublesome.

There's a guard sitting on a chair, just outside the door. I should have known. As I pass him, he looks at me questioningly, and I sort of nod that I understand the rules. He seems satisfied with this extremely minimalistic communication, because he stays seated. I guess I'll leave it at that.

The sky overhead seems clear, as far as I can tell, there's too many leafs and branches blocking the view to be really sure. Although this hides the village well, it feels confined. You can't even look at the clouds properly, I'll be happy to be out of the forest again when we set out tomorrow. Since I'm just stretching my legs, and I don't have a destination, I'll just stick on the main roads in the village to avoid causing problems.

Walking around for a while it seems this villages is very quiet and peaceful at night, not at all like Konoha. Here there's nearly no activity at night, only a handful of restaurants and shops and a few guards. The streets made of wood, are illuminated by lanterns here and there hanging on the buildings, and the few torches of guards walking around. There's also a few civilians here and there, and that's it pretty much all of it.

When I moved out of my parent's house, the one thing I did come to miss is the actual location of the Nara residence, since it's just outside of town instead of right in the centre of it. I thought it would be a good idea to be as close to Hokage tower as I could, so I could sleep a few minutes more in the morning, but it made me realise how much noise and activity there is at night. Not at all like this village. When you never visit a place, your mind starts to imagine what it could be like from the small references you get around you. I have to say, I'm surprised Hidden Grass is so peaceful, didn't expect it to be like this. The silence doesn't feel oppressed. I would describe it as a satisfied silence, for the lack of a better word.

Finally I settle for some small diner that seems empty, it's not unlike that ramen stand that's Naruto's second home. What was it called, Ichiraku Ramen? I think so. Don't remember much from the few times I've been there, but the people seemed nice and that's the best thing about those small businesses.

"Welcome, young man. I see you're a visitor to this town?" The owner says, while he's cooking up something. I'm not sure he knows how I'm a visitor, I didn't really remember him looking at me, but I guess he did when I wasn't paying attention. Still, it's a little remarkable.

"Yeah, I'm passing through." I tell him as I take a seat. I'll just settle for some tea, a midnight snack probably isn't a good idea. The heat from the kitchen, and the sounds of food being prepared makes this diner a rather pleasant place to just sit and relax. Precisely at this moment, I feel at ease. Just as before, taking my time in the few precious moments I have, before work starts, they're always the best. You enjoy those moments more fully when you understand they're limited. I'm thinking about a cigarette to fully wake up but I'm not sure if he'll allow me to smoke it in here, and I can't be bothered to find out. It's really just a small issue but I'm still waking up so I settle for the easy way out.

When I'm about halfway done with the tea, the owner turns around. He looks sort of old, in fact he must be close to retirement. Lucky bastard. As he leans over the counter to see if there's some activity in the street, he starts to speak. Although I prefer the silence, people like him usually have good leads, or so they say, he must hear conversations all day long, it can't hurt to listen.

"You know kid, you're the talk of the town, you and your group."

That's a little unexpected.

"Why is that, old man?" I ask him as I look up from my tea that I had been staring at. He called me a kid, so I guess I can call him an old man.

"Well, you're here chasing after Akatsuki, aren't you?" The owner tells me like it's the most obvious thing in the world. I lost him, this doesn't make sense at all. How would he even know about Akatsuki?

"What makes you say that?" I ask him, pretending I know something about what he's talking about.

"Well, aren't you here to catch those four Akatsuki that visited a few days ago? Our village isn't one of the five great countries, so we are neutral about them. You must be there to catch them?"

"It's something like that. Did you see them yourself?" Still bluffing my way through this conversation, I'm almost afraid of what more details and problems I'm going to find out.

"No, no, I'm just the owner of a small shop, kid. Don't get involved with things like that. I just know because I overheard two guards talking about how they saw the outfit, and recognised it." He says with a hint of pride of finding out this information. Somehow I don't completely believe him, it's too convenient an explanation.

"You're pretty smart old man, it's troublesome to get involved with stuff like that, al right."

"Heh, very clever." I can just barely hear him say that as he returns to his duties.

As I yawn a little, it _is_ late after all, or early, depending on how you look at it. I stretch my arms a little. As I go back to drinking my tea I tell him it must be convenient to be a neutral country. I know it's not true, remaining neutral is a lot of work, actually, to make sure you never accidentally provoke and cause problems.

As I humor the old man with some small talk, in my mind I'm starting to make the connections. Akatsuki always travels in groups of two, and rarely meet in person, except for Zetsu who is actually from Hidden Grass originally. This information has been carefully constructed from several reports, some of which are even bought from Hidden Grass, even I worked on those I remember, so I'm pretty sure it's accurate. For Akatsuki to move in groups of four, something must be going on. The only thing I can think of, is Sasuke also moving in a group and passing by here.

It's almost undeniable, it's not factual proof, but sometimes I believe irony is an actual force at work in the world, Sasuke joining the ranks of Akatsuki just fits _too_ well. Just thinking about this gives me a headache, there's so many problems. How will Naruto take this news, what does he hope to gain with this, why does Sasuke follow in the footsteps of his brother he supposedly hates?

I shake my head slightly trying to shrug off all of these questions and clear my head.

Looking at the clock in the diner, I see I still have about an hour before the sun rises and we start the mission, so I might as well read up on Orochimaru's associates before we set off. I'm still going strong with just a little sleep because of the soldier pill I took yesterday. But I'll probably get tired this afternoon and have to take one again. This mission better not be too long or I'll return to Konoha addicted to those things. That would be troublesome, my mom would have my head.

Let's see here, Kabuto is has been added in the bingo book, I see. Now that's interesting. Until just a few years ago, we had no idea he was working for Orochimaru. And to think he was right under our noses, being stealthy in a village filled with ninja, I can't begin to fathom the effort this must have took. He's still at large at the moment, and according to reports, he has absorbed some of Orochimaru's essence. What kind of life is that? Every single moment, you're putting up an act, it must be tiresome, and lonely. If you live like that long enough, it might become second nature, and putting up an act comes naturally, I'm sure.

What could possess him to follow Orochimaru? It seems this sannin has a sort of effect on people.

On the kind of people who don't feel like they are the same as the others, even if they don't show it.

I wonder, is there some way to notice when people are like that? When you look someone in the eye, could you tell if they're the same as you, deep down? Would that be a skill you are born with, or is it something you learn to notice with experience?

I remember, I could tell Neji, Sasuke, Gaara, they seemed to recognise something in each other's eyes, something familiar to themselves. Who are the people that feel similar to me? There's people that are close to me, or important to me, but who is similar when I look them in the eye?

I take a moment to think about it, but my attention goes back to the bingo book. There's a pretty big list of associates of Orochimaru. Impossible to say who Sasuke's companions might be, or if they're even reputable enough to be mentioned in this book. If they're about his age, the chances are slim.

Besides, Kabuto is also a wanted criminal in Hidden Grass, they wouldn't have let him get away, so he wasn't one of them. At least that's something, we won't have to deal with a medical ninja like him. However, Sasuke must have picked his companions carefully, they must have at least a few ways to heal themselves.

Since I have already established how irony is a very real and active part of the way the world works, it's almost a guarantee Sasuke's group has something to do with our mission, so odds are, we will face them sooner or later. We'll find out then if they have a medic nin, I suppose.

Well, at least we have the advantage, he doesn't know we're here. With that thought, I close the book. A few beams of light are coming through the trees, the sun rises again for a new day. The streets are still empty, it's still early after all. Time to head back.

"Bit of advice, kid." I stop walking for a moment, and turn to him a little, to hear him out.

"Don't build up your opponent too much in your mind, you'll become scared of your own thoughts."

As I suspected, he could sense my presence when I entered the diner, and now this comment.

"Old man, you're not just a restaurant owner, are you?"

"See? We could both tell just by looking at each other." He tells me with a grin.

The irony of this isn't lost on me.


	9. That same old story

"Hey guys, I heard a Kusagakure guard mention their old Head Ninja retired recently. He opened up a small diner right in the hidden village, can you believe it?" Kotetsu seems to be proud of this discovery but I already figured it had to be something like that.

We've been on the move for a while now, and we're nearing the border with Earth Nation. We got up early and spent the day moving at a reasonable pace so we could set up camp and have a full day in what could potentially be enemy territory tomorrow. A full day without anything eventful has noticeably syphoned away some of our anxiety, we're even daring enough to risk exposure with a camp fire.

We're camped next to a cliff in the woods, so it's not so much the visibility of fire but the smell of food that could give us away through animal movements attracted by it. On the other hand, who would be crazy enough to attack 3 chuunin and a jounin? Even I have become a little more bold now that things are moving smoothly again. I'm on a different sleeping rhythm than the others because of the soldier pills but I can sleep at any time and anywhere, so I'll soon adapt to their cycle.

In fact, we have become so relaxed we're even having a chat around the fire, the atmosphere is almost reminiscent of my years as an academy student, the only difference is the shadow of the responsibilities of a chuunin life lingering through my mind. I know I'd sound old saying this out loud, but when I was younger, which was really just a few years ago, I really didn't have a worry in the world. Now I always find something to worry about, and probably always will until the end of my days. What a drag. I could complain and compare myself with clouds, but if they were conscious, they would probably have worries of their own as well. My thoughts are getting lamer and lamer by the hour.

And even right now I have something to worry about. The conversation is steering in a troublesome direction. Izumo probably smuggled something to drink on the mission again. It's a harmless indulgence but he becomes too interested in other people's lives when he's had a drink.

"So Kankuro, what are the girls like in Suna? Are they all scary like your sister?"

". . ."

Oh yeah definitely troublesome. And Kankuro's silence isn't a good sign either.

"Come to think of it, what's the deal with you and Kankuro's sister anyway?"

Not you too, Kotetsu. I sigh but perhaps Kankuro's silent approach isn't that bad. I stare at the fire pretending to be entranced by it. I know I'm not a good actor though, and I'm probably pouting a little.

"Come on don't be so lame, Shikamaru!" Izumo is getting a little too comfortable, putting his arm on my shoulder. But his attention span is short as he quickly moves on to talk to Kankuro.

"What do you think is going on between them, Kankuro?"

Surprisingly he answers, after a short moment where he obviously tries to find the right words. If anything this will be at least interesting.

"It's that same old story. Two shinobi run into each other a few times by chance, and they think it's fate or luck or something. They think there's more going on than just dumb coincidence. But the problem is, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if they look too deeply into it."

"I always knew you were a bit of a realist, but not to that extent." I tell him, trying to keep the specifics a little vague. We're in treacherous waters now, better to consider my words carefully. Kotetsu and Izumo seem to be resting their heads on the palms of their hands, observing this recent development with great interest. Bastards.

"It doesn't really matter in the end. He's too much of a weakling to make a move, and they only meet a few times a year, so it'll never be really serious. Being so little threatening, makes it just about tolerable to me that everyone thinks there's such a thing as 'meant to be' with these two."

I know I really shouldn't say this but somehow I can't help it, maybe it's the lack of danger today, perhaps it's the lack of sleep. Whatever it is,it will definitely come back to me somehow.

"You being so overprotective makes me wonder about the underlying reasons. Maybe you have a sort of sister complex?"

Kankuro apparently needs a moment to process this, I suppose it does seem out of character for me to say something like that. The other two guys are now staring with their mouths wide open. The silence lasts for a few long seconds. I can sort of hear a bird in the background mocking us. What a drag.

"You're an idiot."

"That's not really an answer, though!" Izumo is the first to point out. Kotetsu has trouble keeping his laughter to himself.

I better just wrap this topic up quickly.

"Listen Kankuro, it's troublesome but I'll be blunt and quick about it. There's not really anything going on. I have the feeling that somewhere down the line and given a few years, yeah maybe something might happen. It's more likely than any other girls I can think of, that's for sure. But I'm still young, I'm even struggling to come to grasps with the life of a shinobi. It's just not something I'm ready for yet. I'm sure she feels about the same way."

Maybe when I'm jounin though, but I better not add that piece of information right now. I take a breath that is vaguely similar to a sigh and continue.

"Your sister is a lot of trouble, but I do understand your protective nature, in the end girls are meant to be protected. You're doing your duty as a man. I'd also walk through fire for her no matter how troublesome."

Kankuro crosses his arms and closes his eyes. He seems to be weighing the importance of my words in his mind.

"If I recall, you're the one who usually needs to be rescued rather than her. Idiot."

Yeah real mature, that's really typical. I should have known. He snorts, and we listen to the cracks of the wood in the fire. I suppose it's better to have said it, since it was going to happen at some point on this mission being stuck with him 24 hours a day.

Now that the mood has lifted a little and sleep starts getting the better of us, I find my thoughts drifting. I could read the bingo book a while but it's in my bag and it's too much trouble to reach for it now, I'm that close to sleeping. It's not my watch for another 6 hours anyway.

Am I really an idiot? Whatever is going between Temari and myself, it's like a heat haze in the desert. I can see there's something there, but the specifics are vague and I can't get a grasp on the distance, if anything it's something I feel like I'm always chasing but I'll never catch. Often I will wonder if it's worth the trouble, never sure what to find. Yeah, our kind of fire is a heat haze, definitely.

But for now, the fire isn't an immediate concern. Tomorrow we'll be venturing into what could be enemy territory, keeping an eye out for units with bloodline limits, and Sasuke's group of remnants of Orochimaru's organisation. I guess it can't be helped, the uncertainty and risks of tomorrow's mission would make any man shiver and long for a bit of warmth.

* * *

Shortest chapter yet, but adding any more would just end up in small talk, that's not useful to the story, and I felt the chapter was wrapped up too nicely at the end to just continue with something else. The guys kinda had to bond a little more, I felt they were just going through the motions if I didn't add a chapter like this inbetween, and the whole Temari thing did need to be adressed at some point, so this is as good a moment as any.

As for the recent developments in the manga, they are kind of a drag to work with (sorry, still in shikamaru-mode), so I guess this fanfic takes place just right before these most recent events, making it AU though very very slightly.

Oh by the way I need a decent summary for the story, can't seem to find anything to really explain the story, and the summary I have now is a little too clinical.


	10. No Man's Land

Maybe it's a good idea to take a quick look at that map again that I suggested before.  


* * *

The journey has been eventful, but finally we're here, the no man's land between Grass and Earth that could be considered the border. There are no obvious geographical elements such as mountains and rivers to indicate where the border is exactly, so drawing maps has always been a bit of a problem. Topography isn't what you might call an exact science, but I suppose it can't be helped, it's the way the world works.

In the back of the bingo book I find a small map of the nations. It has a lot of notes and that's understandable, since there is no real way to tell where one nation begins and the other ends.

I suppose when it comes down to it, the range of influence of the Daimyou is really the what you can call a nation or country, but sometimes these ranges overlap somewhat, countries like Hidden Rain have suffered a lot because of these loose interpretations of where a country begins and ends, they're right in the middle of three strong nations.

Fire Nation has actually been fortunate, having a few natural boundaries, it cuts down on these types of territorial conflicts, really the only problem for us in that respect has always been hidden Rain. So although we are at the centre, the conflicts have rarely been in our territory, which has given Fire a prosperous history, relatively, of course.

Wind country is the largest looking purely at the territory, in fact, nobody knows how far the desert extends to the south-east, sometimes their beaches to the south are attacked by pirates and gangs from unknown nations, so we know there is something on the other side of the desert, at least. For them it has also been easy to determine their borders, the territory is mostly the desert. Nevertheless, the sheer size of their country has still dragged them into conflict many times.

Earth country has been a bit of a time bomb for us, they lay low, and once every so often it's that time again and they try to expand their territory. It happens about once a generation, which has led to the speculation that starting a war of some sorts may be part of the ritual for succession to inherit the Daimyou title in that nation. Perhaps this is what's going on at the moment.

It's really bad luck for Hidden Rain. They fought hard and though they lost, the wars that have ravaged the country in the middle of these three big nations, have at least established something of an understanding of where everyone's influence reaches. Rain has kept to themselves, and now even shut themselves off for outside influence. It makes everyone a little weary not to know what's going on, but it has at least prevented further wars in that territory.

I suppose the Hokage and Fire Nation Daimyou must have turned a blind eye to their secrecy because at least there has been no more violence. Though I can understand their motivation, something about leaving a vengeful country to itself feels troublesome to me.

My index finger runs over the map in the bingo book and I trail the route we have travelled from Konoha to the borderlands where we find ourselves now. It seems Grass and Earth still haven't worked out exactly where the border should be, which is why Earth troops on the border are such a problem to Grass, I suppose.

Now my finger moves from Earth to the Rice Field country, where the aristocrats we picked up are from. So Earth nation has been trying to expand their influence by taking over what's left of the Hidden Sound in that country. They're fighting on two fronts. Well, I guess I couldn't really couldn't call it fighting, the real conflict is still not out in the open, hidden underneath the underneath.

The Shinobi that was with the aristocrats, was from Waterfall Country. If Earth has a vassal nation in Rice field, then the Waterfall would find themselves almost surrounded by Earth. No wonder they're desperate to have the succession of the new Daimyou to go their way, in Rice Field. They have their backs against the wall.

And so Grass has become nervous because Earth has started stationing troops around here. They called for Suna to handle it, who then turned to us, and then we found out by pure chance that Earth has been busy on two fronts when we found the group of aristocrats. This discovery might turn out to be crucial information at some point in the future. Trying to convince myself, I start to think that we have already done something important, so it would compensate nicely if we just do the rest of the mission half-heartedly. That's how I would want things to go, anyway.

But then Sasuke had to show up, of course. This pretty much ensured that we have to stay here and do the mission and find leads on him. It seems this troublesome web around me is intricate and set up in such a deliberate way that I find myself constantly having to try harder and harder to escape from it.

I stand up and notice my hands are in my thinking stance. It's such a habit that I don't even notice it any more when I'm lost in thought. Good timing too, it looks like we're about to make our move. Izumo noticed some sort of burning smell earlier, and we decided to follow our noses, so to speak, and check it out.

We quickly found a settlement in a valley, some sort of village, and we have been waiting for about an hour to see if there's any activity, but aside from a smoke trail, it seems abandoned. Normally we would move in, but considering that we're foreign nin on an undercover operation, we have to be extra careful, and we have been observing for movement.

"Listen up guys, it seems like there are no troops stationed, but there could still be shinobi from Hidden Earth on the lookout, so keep an eye out, and if there are any, they're mine, got it?" Kankuro tells us with his usual blend of aggressiveness and foolishness, as he climbs down from the tree. We're using a minimum of chakra to make sure we're not detected by trackers. It's a bit of a pain but we'll probably walk to the village.

Kotetsu is up front, his style is the most straightforward. I'm second, behind me is Izumo, and Kankuro takes up the last spot in this make-shift formation. The gap between chuunin and jounin never felt that big to me, but these guys are so trained that nevertheless I still have to do my best to keep up with their pace, as we run silently towards the village.

The settlement is typical for this area, mostly built from wood, not more than a few generations old, the main function is that it's a farm, by the looks of it. Though it looks a little run down, it's not neglected. Whoever was here, disappeared not too long ago. There are some barricaded doors and windows as well. My gaze shifts from left to right as I scan the surroundings for any hints on what's going on.

The village really isn't more than a dirt road with some buildings on either side, so it's not very large but we still haven't found the source of this smell we picked up. It's a little like burned wood. But now that we're closer we can smell something else. Something that may have been human.

"Over there!" Izumo points at the last house in the settlement. That's where the smoke is coming from. As we walk over to it, Kotetsu holds up his hand, signalling us to stop, and then crouches to inspect the ground. He looks around him and his hand hovers above the ground, almost touching it, as if he's tasting the ground somehow.

"There's some tracks here that haven't been properly concealed. Looks like a cart of some sort was over there and I see some sandals everywhere as well, different sizes. And weird little holes everywhere. I wonder what those could be?"

"They're spears. These troops are mostly civilian." Kankuro states, as though he's sure of it. He can't possibly be entirely sure, but his explanation does seem to make sense. However, if that's true then...

"If they need civilians as a military force, that means they're making an army with bigger purposes than just those of a hidden village." I tell them. I notice for a second how we're still standing in the middle of the street as we discuss this. "This could be a sign that they're planning some sort of invasion."

They're all thinking about this. It's only speculation so far, but these tracks that have been so amateurishly removed, do support our idea. Kankuro starts rubbing his chin with his knuckles, a habit I've seen him do a few times today, obviously thinking.

"We have to get evidence to confirm this theory. When we do, we have technically fulfilled the requirements for the mission." He's right. Just our hunch isn't good enough for Hidden Grass. We need something more concrete.

"And when we do, we can go back to Konoha before we're caught in the middle of a territorial war between two nations we have nothing to do with." Izumo points out, we all nod, being both hopeful and careful not to get ahead of ourselves.

"First things first, let's see what's in this building. What do you suggest, Shikamaru?"

"I hadn't really thought of anything for this situation, but I suppose Izumo and Kotetsu could take the front, I sneak around, and you take a side, observing through the holes in the wall, you'll be our secret weapon in case there's a need for it."

"Sounds good, let's do it." Kankuro is all business now and gestures his hand forward and we quickly move to position. I nod to Izumo and Kotetsu letting them know they can go ahead at their own discretion. To be honest I picked the back because I'd probably have to do the least amount of work, but I do have to go around the building. It looks like some sort of farm, and indeed there's an abandoned crop field around back. There's also a sliding door that looks like it's not barricaded, and I lean against the wall right next to it as silently as I can. I have the sun in my face and for a moment I enjoy the warmth.

All that remains now is to wait until I can hear them move. My senses heightened, I can hear the leaves rustle in a gust of wind, and the bamboo in the garden creaking a little bit from that same wind. I feel the wooden wall on my back, the slightly cool metal of the kunai in my hand slowly adjusting to my temperature, and my increasing heartbeat due to the adrenaline. I see my own shadow as I slowly move my hands towards the sliding door. I'm awake. I'm wide awake.

The door slides open slowly as I gently push it with my free hand, keeping the other with the kunai close to my face. I slip in expertly and again silently close it. It's mostly made of thin wood and paper, so in case of emergency I could always run right through it if I have to. In the corner of my eye I see the familiar shadows of Izumo and Kotetsu's movements as they scout the entrance. Right in front of me is a staircase. So much for my plan of doing the least work. Troublesome as it is, I'll have to go upstairs first. I beckon the both of them to follow me with a gesture, now that they're in sight. I'll just have to have faith that Kankuro can see we're going upstairs.

I stick to the left side of the stairs as we move up, they're pretty wide, the three of us could stand next to each other on it if we wanted to. We're being very careful not to cause anything to creak. These stairs look old, after all. One of the steps does make a bit of a sound but as soon as I notice I stop putting more pressure on it.

We hear some sort of breathing sound as a reacting to it, coming from upstairs. We have a quick eye-contact to confirm they heard it as well. Skipping that step, we move up the stairs. There's not much here, only a single door. This is where the smell is coming from, definitely. Since we're so close I can stop suppressing my chakra now, if we're noticed somehow, we're too close anyway. With a few hand seals I create the neck bind jutsu, and reach for the door handle.

There's more than one way to use a jutsu, after all. I've never told anyone but when you use this technique, you can feel right through these shadowy hands as if they're your own. If that flute girl had known that fact at the time, she would have killed me for touching her inappropriately. Well, it's actually not like it would have made a difference.

The handle slowly turns, and the door opens a little. We scurry over to the door, and go into the only room on this floor.

An Akatsuki robe, and a red-haired girl with glasses sleeping in it, on a bed. There's a few other beds that are empty but look like they have been used, and various things littered around the room, mostly empty water bottles. The smell is coming from the fireplace, it's a boar by the looks of the carcass. These things have flesh that smells very similar to human flesh, but it turns out it was a meal to this group. At least I should be thankful it's not anything directly disturbing. We move over to the sleeping girl. She looks harmless enough, except for the Akatsuki robe. We'll have to be fast.

In a few swift movements I cover her mouth with my hand, causing her to wake up without a sound. Immediately Kotetsu restrains her movement by holding her down. Izumo creates a syrup field on the wall, and Kotetsu and I throw her on it.

"What the fuck!?" She starts screaming when I let go. I don't know where the idea comes from that women are supposed to be gentle and soft spoken, they're almost always troublesome like this. Of course, it's not like we're being very nice either.

"Quiet down, if you want to live." Kotetsu whispers to her, standing next to her ear. This seems to make her silent, for now. She makes an attempt to move, but it's pointless, the syrup can even stop Chouji rolling at full speed, as we found out in a hilarious incident one day.

"You don't seem very strong for an Akatsuki." Izumo states. The three of us especially should know never to underestimate Akatsuki, but I can't help but agree with him, besides the robe, she looks like an unremarkable shinobi. Chuunin at best, due to her age. There has to be some sort of trick we're not aware of.

The pieces of the puzzle quickly fall into place, there is only one possible explanation, she's a remnant of Orochimaru's organisation. That old creep should have given it a name, at least Akatsuki has the decency to have something to call them by. She's one of Sasuke's companions who were spotted in Hidden Grass the other day, not doubt. That means he must be close.

"You jerks are both lucky and unlucky at the same time."

"Shut up!" Kotetsu quickly threatens her with the prospect of feeling the back of his hand. It's a drag but she is an Akatsuki, after all. No room for too much morality.

Ignoring him completely, she continues. "If I had been awake, I would have felt you coming from a far away. That was luck on your side. But now you dug your own grave, Sasuke will be here soon and you bastards will all be ki-"

Kotetsu really has no choice and slaps her, causing her head to spin away from him. Oddly enough judging by her expression, she seems to enjoy it. Yeah, just when we thought we could quickly wrap up the mission, we run into a masochistic woman who ruins it for us.

Izumo whispers to me from behind a hand he's holding up. "You don't suppose she's also immortal, do you? She seems to have weird markings on her arm, too."

Not sure why he's whispering, everyone can hear him, Kankuro too, probably, wherever he is. Izumo is weird like that.

"We could test if she's immortal." Kotetsu suggests, though more of a psychological pressure to her than an actual suggestion.

"You guys are so lame, Sasuke will kill you for sure and rescue me." Though she's looking like a lovestruck little girl, immediately afterwards her gaze is fierce again. Her cheek is still red from the slap. And her trust is misplaced, I find he has a habit of abandoning those who are close to him.

* * *

This chapter has less fancy symbolism and more .. events. The story has to get moving at some point, right? Anyways, the first part also serves as a bit of a reminder of the current situation and how complicated it has/can become, since it's been a few chapters since this was last explained.


	11. Somewhere between the devil and God

I notice a strange detail about this girl that I missed at first, her hair is cut unevenly. Along with the other patterns on her arm, that look like bite marks, and her statements and behaviour, I'm starting to profile her. The short skirt, the lip gloss, the glasses, something is off. It feels like she's acting, but it's not about appearing weak. She might have an ability beyond being able to sense us from afar, which she accidentally told us. No point breaking my mind over it now, there's just not enough information.

It's only her and myself in the room now. Izumo and Kotetsu have joined Kankuro and are hidden with a basic cloaking jutsu. We figured Sasuke's sharingan would probably see through our trap no matter how well we make it, so we're taking our chances and assuming he won't have it activated. Troublesome as it may be, it's a risk we'll have to take.

We had to knock out the girl and then we discussed our plan. It was Kankuro who suggested I'd be the one to get Sasuke's attention since I'm the most likely to get a reaction out of him that isn't immediately hostile. I have my doubts about that, but at the very least he'll probably exchange a few words.

It's in his character to do so, not because he is a fan of pleasantries or small talk, but he will the need to re-affirm that his path that he has chosen is the right one. I could even say that is the nature of someone who has dedicated his life to vengeance, most of all it's the sense of being justified that he holds on to. He will especially want to do so when faced with a former comrade from his past.

This unexpected event will cause him to drop his awareness for his surroundings for maybe just a few seconds, enough for him and his comrades to walk into a trap. Basically it's nothing more than a variation of pointing somewhere to avert someone's eyes, it's the oldest trick in the book.

He doesn't know it yet but the game has started, and I'm already sizing up my opponent. My pieces are set, now it will come down to the details to see if my plan holds up in reality.

Time passes by slowly and I check from time to time on the girl to see if she's breathing properly, if Sasuke doesn't show up, at least she has to be alive to provide us with answers. Besides, I would just be kidding myself, if I thought I'd have it in me to kill someone defenceless like that.

Since time is passing slowly, I take out the bingo book, to read a few pages. The plan was that Sasuke would have to walk in on me, so I don't have to stay particularly alert.

Most entries on Konoha are pretty well-known to me by now, so I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if I read about something else. I'll have to know the whole book by heart eventually. Let's see, the country of Rain seems like a small section, I'll start with that. A secretive bunch, we don't know a lot about most of them, the only thing we know for sure is that they have Salamander Hanzo and he is strong.

It's a bit of a mythical figure, always surrounded by a personal guard, gave the Sannin their name, renowned throughout the shinobi world as being unbeatable. The Third was the greatest amongst the Kage, but hidden Rain was not considered one of the five great nations, if it was, that title of greatest Kage would most probably have been Hanzo's.

The Sannin may even have been at their strongest at the time when they met Hanzo. Jiraiya had already been to the hidden Myobokuzan, the land of toads, before the war. Tsunade was already renowned to be one of the greatest medic nin in the world. Only Orochimaru had not yet changed his body to the extent that he had become more of a monster that he is today, than a human. But in his original body he would have had a more natural access to his chakra, it's hard to tell if they would have faired better in their later years.

The Sannin themselves are already world-renowned, any of them is easily Kage level, and there stands someone even above them. I had always heard Hanzo was paranoid and power hungry, but keeping opponents alive like that, seems counterproductive for someone afraid to lose power. Then again, seeing the potential in the Sannin he may have thought that they may add to his renown if they would grow to be stronger shinobi.

For all his strange dealings, at least he has been somewhat on good terms with Konoha the last few years, it came to an uneasy alliance, even as far as sending genin to us for the chuunin exams. The recent exams Temari and I noticed they didn't send anyone any more, though. According to Ibiki it was not that unusual, it had happened before, but it still felt weird to me.

Perhaps the change in policy means Hanzo finally gave up his position to someone else? It seems unlikely that someone stronger than him would show up though. I'd hate to think of having to fight someone who could make Hanzo retire. Oh well, I don't need to pre-occupy myself with these troublesome thoughts, if anything is impossible in this world, it's the emergence of someone stronger than that.

I let out a small but nervous laugh at that thought. Then it happens, I hear something moving outside. Quickly I put the bingo book back in my bag and carefully move to the window to take a peek. It's Sasuke, al right. The other two are a distracted looking big guy and a weird skinny guy with a big sword. I've seen that sword somewhere before, it's Zabuza's Zanbato sword. Reading the bingo book is starting to pay off, after all. I'm beginning to notice more of these little details.

One of these days the bingo book will turn out to be just the edge I need to win. As they say, God is in the details, after all. Another detail I can't help but notice is how Sasuke is wearing the same kind of outfit as Orochimaru, which is actually a traditional Grass nation outfit under his Akatsuki robe. The huge belt is unmistakable. I had read that Orochimaru had originally stolen the outfit from Grass Country genin he killed three years ago, I suppose he must have liked it, because he kept the outfit. And now Sasuke is wearing something similar, and happens to be in Grass Country too. I wonder if he is even aware of that?

No time to waste on figuring that out, it's time for the first stage of the plan. I do a last check to see if I can reach Asuma's trench knifes, keeping myself busy to calm my nerves. I can hear them inside, going up the stairs.

"Karin! Are you awake?" Someone is calling for what I can only presume is the girl. She won't be waking up so soon, though. At this point I can only hope the plan will work, since I am now beyond the point of no return. I sigh and very quietly mumble something resembling 'troublesome'. I can hear them going up the stairs, even the creaking step. The door knob starts turning. I cross my arms and lean backwards on the wall opposite to the door. It's a decent distance, but more importantly it's what I need for the trap to work.

"Hey Karin, why aren't you ans-" The scrawny guy with the sword stares at me blankly. He was upstairs first.

"Yo." I greet him casually raising a hand as well. At this point Sasuke and the big guy walk in as well. I feel outnumbered like that.

"What the hell? He's from the Leaf!"

"Yes, I can see that, Suigetsu." Sasuke replies coolly. The big guy seems to be the silent type. Sasuke hasn't changed that much in these years, but he seems even colder than he did back then. From the looks of him I can tell he doesn't even recognise me. It figures.

"You must be wondering, why is there a Leaf shinobi in your hideout, right?" I tell him, smirking. I'm going to bluff and play it cool. The more time I can buy the better. Suigetsu seems annoyed by this and wants to speak up. He gets interrupted by Sasuke, though.

"It's a trap!" He yells, and they start to move. Geez, so I could only buy about 4 seconds. How annoying, but it's still more than I thought I would. As Sasuke shouts, Izumo and Kotetsu appear behind them, and close off the only exit to the room, actually succeeding in capturing this Suigetsu fellow in the syrup field. He must be reckless to be caught like that. The first stage of the plan is set in motion.

The big guy hasn't moved, still standing there, but pulling up his sleeves for some reason, but Sasuke is gone.

"Behind you!" Izumo points, and throws a kunai. I drop to the floor to dodge it. I hear the kunai hit the wall behind me, so Sasuke must have dodged that as well. As I lay on the floor I start to extend my shadow to the big guy. I connect, and can see he didn't expect that. Stage two is a success. But man, this guy is powerful, though I don't need to, I don't think I would be able to hold him for very long, and to top it off, Sasuke is still somewhere.

It's all going very fast. "Foolish." A faint voice tells me, as I can hear the air of a blade swinging through the air. I have been preparing for something like this, and I turn on my back, and jump up to block, making the big guy also turn and jump. In a reflex I grab the trench knifes and block whatever is incoming. It seems like it's a katana. Just in time.

"Yes, foolish to block my sword in such a manner." Sasuke hasn't even activated his sharingan yet, but I can see the killing intent in his eyes, clear as day. It's obvious he's going to to put lightning based chakra in the blade, I have read the reports from previous encounters. This will make his blade unblock able and paralysing to the touch. However, he doesn't know that these trench knifes are designed to channel chakra more easily, and before he knows it, my chakra infused shadow moves in his hands, trapping his movement, before he gets to charge his lightning jutsu. It's an element with many advantages, but also with the disadvantage that most jutsu need a short moment to charge up.

"Shadow imitation, succeeded." I state with admittedly a little bit too much smugness for my own good. The killing intent in his eyes is now momentarily replaced with surprise. Stage three of the plan is also a success.

Doing this, however, breaks the connection I had with that big guy, but he had his face to the wall because of my jutsu. Kotetsu smashes him with one of his weapons as this happens. He was waiting for a chance to do this, just like we planned, he couldn't as long as I held the big guy. The smash is hard and loud, but nevertheless Kotetsu's attack is blocked by what looks like weapons growing out of the big guy's arms.

As that happens, I have to be quick. Sasuke will most probably now use this close proximity to cast a genjutsu on me, so with my own eyes closed as a precaution to any eye technique he might use, I move my neck bind shadow to his head, but instead of his neck, I cover his eyes. I can hear him grunting, and then I hear and feel a huge blast behind me, small debris flying around.

So it seems my assumption was correct, Sasuke really doesn't know about my technique, and is caught by surprise. Now that I have stopped his movements, and his strongest weapon is useless in the absolute darkness, I can check to see what's going on behind me. There's smoke everywhere and a large hole in the wall, it seems Kotetsu knocked the big guy straight through.

"Kankuro is fighting him outside." Kotetsu informs me, right before jumping out to join the fight. That's good, it's not exactly what we had planned, but it works out in the end.

"Looks like we actually caught them!" Izumo tells me, with a tone to his voice that makes it sound like he can hardly believe it himself. This Suigetsu guy doesn't seem to agree with him though, and starts snickering.

His cloak and sword fall to the floor along with a huge pool of water. Was he a water clone? No, the cloak wouldn't fall like that, if he was. There's something moving. It's hard to see with all the smoke in here. Oh no..

"Behind you, Izumo!" I throw my other trench knife to stop the emerging figure behind him, incidentally also making Sasuke throw away his katana. This worked, as the figure becomes liquid again and starts to move away into the smoke, out of sight.

"I didn't hear him at all."Izumo says, as he jumps in closer to me and Sasuke. I can feel Sasuke trying to move, but he's caught. He seems to have a little less power than the big guy, being slightly easier to hold in place.

"Izumo, I'm sorry, but you'll have to manage alone for the rest of the fight. I have to get out of here."

"I know, I'll join Kotetsu and Kankuro outside, it'll be three against two."

There's another big explosion outside. Sounds like this time it was an explosive kunai, so it must have been Kankuro's doing. Time for the final stages of the plan, I have to move Sasuke away from his team. With the shadow imitation still strong, I move Sasuke and myself to the hole in the wall, and check the surroundings, and Izumo covers my back. Suigetsu is still somewhere in the room, he could attack from anywhere.

Sasuke can't see anything because my neck bind covering his eyes, and can't move, but he doesn't seem afraid at all. His face betrays only that he seems somewhat annoyed by the whole thing, which makes me a little nervous about his abilities. Before we leave, one more thing pops into my mind.

"I could be wrong, Izumo, but it seems like this Suigetsu can make himself liquid, so pay close attention to anything wet around you, and he may not be able to sneak up on you."

"I know, I figured it out as well." He says, keeping focussed on the room. I have to admit he looks kinda cool, having this sort of confidence. With that, I leap out, taking Sasuke with me. Kankuro and Kotetsu are fighting the big guy on the street where the four of us were discussing the tracks on the ground earlier. Izumo joins them, and they automatically go for the standard circle formation. Knowing that they will be al right, I move away from the village, into the forest.

The plan worked about as well as could be expected, at least I managed to trap Sasuke and separate him from his team. We figured that he would make a team with a certain synergy, one member adding to the power of the other, which is a lesson I learned from fighting Akatsuki before. If anything goes wrong now, it would be due to small unforeseen events, not because of poor planning. These little incalculable events are what makes it so hard to plan ahead. The devil is in the details. I just have to take a leap of faith and believe in the end it will work out.

* * *

Okay, first of all, thanks for all the reviews, favorites and alerts, it's very awesome. Secondly, I'm sorry it took a little longer to update this time, but on the other hand I don't really need to apologise to any of you, so I won't be losing any sleep over it :p As always I'm still making this up as I go along. I hope I won't write myself in a corner but it'll work out.

Anyway, as for Hanzo, I decided the setting for this story would be right before the Pain invasion arc. I'm going to try and make it fit somehow, as if this story could have been filler for the series. If it doesn't work out, so be it, but I won't be making big plot changes that would seriously alter the way canon would play out later. I know that in a way it's a bit of a spoiler for the rest of the story for you readers, but on the other hand you can rest assured I won't break your suspension of disbelief too much either, even though I have some big events in mind that the story could move to.


	12. Death

"I can already tell, that your jutsu can't hold me forever. It's already weakening." He tells me. I can't detect anything in his voice that gives away anything human. With my own vision, I can already tell, it will be impossible to save him, because he's already lost.

We're now walking in the forest. No particular destination, no hole in the ground that requires precise positioning. This time I have prepared something else. Something I have been saving for exactly this kind of occasion.

Drawing some blood from my fingers, I start drawing the markings on the floor. I have never used this jutsu before, but apparently it has to be done slowly.

All I have to do is buy a little time. Engage in conversation. As I am drawing on the floor, Sasuke will mimic my movement and know exactly what shapes I'm making, but he won't understand the meaning. To my knowledge nobody does, any more.

I have always found unnecessary small talk to be bothersome. But this is not unnecessary, I sort of made up my mind about telling him a few things, long ago.

"Sasuke, I was wondering, do you know who I am?"

"Not exactly, no. But I have to admit, you seem vaguely familiar."

I think he's telling the truth, at the academy, only Naruto scored worse, my grades were so far away from Sasuke's, he wouldn't have noticed me. Not in the way I saw him notice the prodigies like Neji and Gaara. In our lives we must have exchanged about as many words as we are right now.

"Hmm, so that's what I am to you, 'vaguely familiar'. But what do you think you are to me?"

"To you, because you inherit the ideals of the Senju, I am death."

Not sure what he's implying by that. Does he hold some sort of grudge to the Leaf now? What have we done to him? Regardless, if he thinks I am scared to death, he is mistaken. He doesn't cast nearly as large a shadow as other dangers I have faced.

"Sasuke, if you were death, you would have known me better, because you would have been my companion."

". . ."

"Instead of being death, to me you were a comrade. You were once one of us, and we all risked our lives to stop you going down this path. Did you know that?"

This seems to get a reaction out of him. I imagine Naruto must have told him something similar.

"I'm not like Naruto, I don't need friends the way he does." Bingo. Now I can steer the conversation to where I want it to go.

"Naruto doesn't need friends, nor does he need family."

I bet he didn't expect that. The first move is always a feint. As I thought, Sasuke doesn't answer but I can feel under the neck bind jutsu on his face that he's rising an eyebrow, expecting an explanation. I continue.

"As he says all the time, all he really needs is people that believe in him. You have been his friend, even his brother, but you never really believed in him, did you?"

Sasuke remains silent. I sigh, as this is starting to feel like a soliloquy. Troublesome.

"To be honest, I have been a lousy friend, I couldn't be there all the time, but you know what, all of us, the rookie nine, the Hokage, really everyone else in the village, and even beyond, we all believe in his impossible dreams."

"No, you _want_ to believe them. It's different, but in the end the only thing that really matters, the only thing that makes you achieve your ambitions is power and knowledge. Not belief."

"You know what the Will of Fire is, don't you Sasuke? It's our _belief_, all of us who are born in Konoha believe we have inherited the world from our predecessors. This is what binds us as comrades and makes us loyal to each other."

"I have recently learned that the world we have inherited from those predecessors is an illusion, their actions have caused a great deal of hatred, and so yours will inevitably also cause hatred, in the end."

Hatred? What happened to you, Sasuke? He continues his answer.

"When this jutsu is released, you will be the first Konoha shinobi to understand a little of how deeply rooted my hatred really is."

So that's the answer. I close my eyes for a moment, saying goodbye to someone who was once one of us.

He is no more one of us now, I had to confirm it for myself before I went ahead with the rest of the plan.

Sasuke, you have changed so much, indeed your loyalty to us doesn't exist any more. Asking it now would be unnecessary.

My jutsu is starting to weaken. To keep the shadow imitation going for a little longer, I release the neck bind jutsu, freeing his eyes. I just have to keep in mind to keep his head turned away from me, and I should be able to avoid most problems. Now for the troublesome part of the plan.

"Sasuke, you know Naruto wishes to save you? He believes you can be saved. It's tragic, but I think after meeting you, I can't believe in him any more, because now I want to be his friend, Sasuke."

"So, that means you will try and kill me." He has a smirk on his face. I can't see him, but I am one hundred percent sure. He figured out what I meant by that. If Sasuke is ever captured Naruto will quickly learn that the friend he once had, died when he left the village. He was probably dying for a while.

Accepting the forbidden arts, created by sacrificing life, he will have to pay the ultimate price for that. That truth will hit Naruto too hard.

"Yes, I want him to keep believing in himself, and you just have it in you to shatter that for him. I can't allow that, Sasuke. I will kill you to prevent that from ever happening. Your death will come as a shock, and he'll hate me for it, but in doing so, I will be his friend, because he'll still be able to believe. It will save him in the end."

"That is not an easy path to walk. You're too weak to carry a burden like that. And besides, you won't be able to lay a finger on me." He's starting to move his neck and fingers a little. One more minute and I'll have to release the jutsu.

"You have walked into a trap, Sasuke. This is the final stage, look around you."

Graciously I move my head so he can look at the ground to the markings.

"I'm not familiar with this symbol, but my sharingan will soon uncover the secrets behind it." He seems confident in his abilities. Wait, no, not exactly. The gifts of his ancestry and his abilities are two different things.

"No it won't, this is a religious symbol, not something related to chakra." This seems to tick him off, as he also must see with the sharingan that the symbol isn't jutsu.

I start the summoning. So does Sasuke, as he mimics me due to the shadow imitation. I don't know what he'll summon by doing these hand-signs, but it can't be as troublesome as what I am about to unleash.

Two white clouds pop up from out of nowhere with our summons. His seems rather large, while mine is, as I expected, a little small.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit! First thing I see when I get out of that lousy hole is your stinking face, fuck!"

I pull up the head by the hair, with my hand.

"Ow ow! What the hell, man? You _know_ this hurts! Just shrivel up and die somewhere already, you little punk!"

I let out a sigh as I knew this would be troublesome. I look over to Sasuke, he seems to have summoned a snake, and is holding the tail end, as he is still mimicking my movements, and also picked up his summon. He seems to be extremely confused by what he's seeing. I suppose I must have had a similar look on my face when I first saw it with my own eyes.

"Just be quiet, through me, you will be able to sacrifice to that god of yours. I already prepared the circle. Now all that remains is to give you the blood for the ritual."

"Jashin I beg you just smite this infide-" His rant is cut short as he notices that I have indeed prepared the circle for him.

"Fuck yeah!"

So my greatest enemy has become my greatest weapon. I recall thinking a while ago that irony was not just a way of words, but an actual power at work in the world. I pull out a kunai, and cut myself in my arm, Sasuke does the same. Will I be able to hold him in my jutsu long enough for this to work? No time to dwell on it, I throw the kunai to Sasuke, and catch his.

I've never actually seen it happening from this perspective, and in a way I'm starting to feel like I'm treading on treacherous waters. These are dark arts after all, it's extremely troublesome.

_Asuma, I'm sorry I'm using this as a weapon, but a ninja is pragmatic if nothing else. I have to use this weapon against a superior opponent. Your sacrifice has opened up many possibilities for me. Climbing Silver. The strategy I hate the most, but I have been forced to live by. Can't let your sacrifice go to waste._

With new-found resolve, I hold the kunai next to the mouth so he can lick it. Sasuke is looking rather silly, smearing the kunai with my blood on the snake's tail.

Oh no. the shadow imitation is at it's limit, only a few seconds at most, jeez, I have to hurry it up!

As soon as the skin starts changing colour I waste no time and stab the head from behind. I'm so concentrated and pumped with adrenaline, it feels as though the world moves in slow motion. I lost control of the jutsu right as I stabbed. The head I'm holding seems to be twitching in ecstasy, so I drop it on the ground. It's not like he'll die from it. I look up to see Sasuke, it looks like he's lying on the ground, motionless. I should be happy with the sight, but I'm deeply disturbed, something is wrong.

Where is the snake?

* * *

_Pretty short chapter but this may be the one I am most proud of._

_I imagine there are a couple of questions, so let me explain a few things beforehand. I have come to believe that Shikamaru's character in this story was too flawless. If I would have kept that up, he would become predictable at some point, dragging the story down. Shikamaru was never meant to be the flawless hero, that's more Naruto's role. He has to be more believable, the character that could be human. But on the other hand, Shikamaru _is_ a genius so especially in his thoughts, he has to be ahead of the readers.  
_

_As for the other thing, yes, it is Hidan. Since you can summon practically anything, even humans, and since Shikamaru can think outside the box, this seemed like a good idea to go with. Shikamaru doesn't call him by name because he regards him as a weapon, and using a name would suggest too much familiarity, I think.  
_

_The combination of adding Hidan to the story and making Shikamaru think like a killer has made me bump the rating to M. Especially the latter is a big reason for the rating, I can imagine inexperienced readers would think he could be out of character. I know it's not explained that clearly in the story when he decides to kill Sasuke but I wanted to have more unspoken understandings between characters, and those are the hardest to write when you don't want to literally write it down.  
_

_If his motivation is simply not clear enough, then I messed up, simple as that. I'll be especially curious to see what the reviews will be saying about this chapter.  
_

_Which reminds me, thanks for all the reviews, alerts and favourites, you guys are the best, putting up with irregular updates and increasingly long author notes._


	13. Use your head

A slight breeze passes through the trees in this forest, and brushes the back of my neck, it feels a little cooler than expected. Cold sweat. I take small steps towards the body, a kunai in my hand, trying to keep it steady. Am I, afraid? Guess so. With the tip of my foot I poke the body, it's very light. So light in fact, there's no way this is natural, in fact, the human body even becomes a little heavier when immediately after it dies. I take the kunai and cut a small hole in the stomach to check.

Some faintly purple coloured gas escapes, I barely have time to cover my face. Most probably it's poisonous. Though I'm pretty sure I didn't inhale, it's not like I can stick around to check. But I've seen enough, I don't need to check any more. The snake that Sasuke summoned, took his appearance, and then died, shedding his temporary Sasuke shaped skin and shrivelling up inside it.

As I slowly walk backwards, more alert than ever, I notice his eye is covered by a sharingan. Sasuke must have put a genjutsu on the snake, making it substitute itself with Sasuke, so he could escape without using hand-signs, because he was trapped in my jutsu. I hate to admit it, but it's clever, escaping like that, it was the one flaw in my plan I had hoped would go my way.

"Bllllrrrrrrghhh...."

Oh I forgot about the head. I walk over to it, and pull it by the hair, making the eyes roll backwards. It's semi conscious even with a kunai stuck in the brain. I better get rid of it as quickly as possible, he still holds a grudge and might even tell Sasuke where I am. I let it go, and do a quick release hand sign, to summon it back.

The silhouette of Sasuke appears from behind a tree. He must assume I'm out of tricks now. Looks like it's time for round two, and it _will_ be troublesome.

"What sort of jutsu did you try to use on me? The snake died instantly." Sasuke asks me on a tone that hints of frustration. I guess he also understands how close he came to being killed just now.

"You know it's nothing ordinary. To truly grow as a shinobi, we need an ability that's unimaginable, if we want to surprise our opponents. I'm sure you can appreciate that way of thinking, at least."

"In a way. Even if you won't tell me, I won't underestimate you this time, so you won't catch me by surprise anymore." He goes into a fighting stance. His feet are far apart, one hand in front, one hand to his side. I mirror his actions with my own stance.

We just stare down at each other for a while. It's like a stand-off, looking at the other, finding a weakness or an opening. Most probably the both of us are more worn out than we care to admit, though we haven't fought much yet, we both used some big jutsu already. I know using advanced genjutsu with the sharingan is pretty intense, especially if he has to make his subject substitute itself. He probably won't use it again soon.

I notice he's not holding his hand right, if he wants to grab a weapon. Could it be a feint, or could the sharingan have affected his vision? Does he maybe even aim to distract me like that? His face doesn't betray anything. Although I should feel like I'm staring down a superior opponent, right now, in this moment where we anticipate each other, he feels like a different person. Someone I can anticipate.

I leave a deliberate opening of my own. If his opening had been deliberate too, he'll know I'm on to him. If his opening wasn't, then something is wrong with his depth perception, and he'll take the bait. Relaxing my fingers, I slowly let my arm drift away from the optimal spot. The cold sweat is back, it's unnerving. This will be a crucial moment.

* * *

Sasuke disappears from sight. Looks like I won this small battle of bluffs. He took the bait, with no time to rejoice at the fact that he has a handicap, I take all the chakra I can summon, into my feet and launch myself into the air. A beam of electricity buzzes right underneath me, I dodged just in time, and his aim seems off, a little too much to the left. I use my momentum to land on a tree branch. His speed and ability is far beyond mine, but he seems very inaccurate.

He's resorting to using variants of chidori without using the sharingan to aim it properly. Looking down from this tree I can see his blur coming to a halt, not too far from where I was standing just now. Looks like he can only use that incredible speed of his in short bursts.

"Tsh.." Sasuke seems ticked off that he has trouble landing a hit. I waste no time and throw a tagged kunai at him, exploding on impact with the ground. It's a loud but mostly harmless explosion, I'm going to alternate fake and real kunai, making it hard for him to prioritise threats.

I figure, I only stand a chance if I finish this quickly. Though it's a drag to do that much effort, I'll go through my whole arsenal in a matter of moments if I have to. This time I take a fake and a real one.

The tree I'm standing on starts shaking, and acting on reflex I jump to the next one, throwing the two kunai to the base of the tree, where Sasuke must be, no doubt, then I keep jumping through the branches as quickly as I can.

It's a good thing I took off when I did, the tree that was shaking now looks to be shredded and charred by the blue streams and bolts from Sasuke's attack. It's frustrating that I can't get a good fix on where he is, the explosions and his speed make it hard to see. The only thing keeping me from a certain death is moving in an unpredictable pattern, Sasuke has good enough judgement to anticipate my movements if I don't.

Four tagged kunai, one explosive, followed by two fake, and finished off with a real one, I throw them on branches around me, being fairly certain he will have taken to the trees, since his last two attacks from the ground have missed.

In the corner of my eye I finally spot him. He's stopped on a heavy branch covered in moss, maybe it was a tree that fell down sideways. Sasuke undoes the wraps on his arms, revealing summoning circles. It's ingenious, if I remember correctly from the bingo book, Orochimaru used something similar. In a fluid motion he summons shuriken and throws them at me.

Easy to dodge. Obviously he's testing his aim. Had I fought him head-on before he had to resort to the mangekyo sharingan to escape my traps, I would have been dead in a few moves. I know it, he knows it. But time is on his side, he's starting to adjust. Though Sasuke doesn't outwardly show it, I can sort of tell by his tactics and risks he takes, that he's starting to become more confident he'll win.

This time eight kunai. My weapons pouch is starting to feel disturbingly light. Three are explosive. Two are armed with smoke bombs. The other three are regular kunai. I hold them individually between my fingers like I usually do, throw them to him, he counters by throwing shuriken of his own to deflect. They explode somewhere halfway. One explosion seemed close to him, but I can't see it exactly due to the smoke. He must have missed it, his aim still not fully recovered.

A few shuriken zip out of the smoke, one of them lands in my flak jacket. The impact his heavy but it didn't get through. He must have thrown them hard, possibly out of frustration. The ominous sound of charging electricity now warns me that he's going to use a move from behind the smoke. It's no doubt something big, so he won't have to aim. It's now or never. If I don't stop him, I could be done for.

Recklessly I charge into the smokescreen. It's a pain in the ass, I may as well be blind with this smoke. As soon as I get out, I can see Sasuke's surprise on his face.

Enjoying it more than I should, in a life or death battle, I land a punch in his face, causing him to stumble backwards. Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to start a shadow jutsu before charging in, acting purely on instinct, or I would have caught him. I had good feedback with that punch, but nonetheless he counters me with a kick in the stomach.

Being fully aware of the situation I'm in, I take the trench knifes. I had hoped my punch would have done more damage but it looks like I still need to work on my taijutsu. If I get out of this alive, that is.

Ignoring the strain on my abdomen for taking that kick, I charge at Sasuke, with the knifes, swinging it at his upper torso. With a detached look on his face, he dodges, and elbows me in the ribs as he passes behind me. Due to the difference in speed, I couldn't even see him very well. In this exchange of attacks I realize, there's no way I can win now. This is his world, close range. It's of little to no comfort to know that he must have exhausted most of chakra, and resorted to fighting hand to hand instead of jutsu.

The pain from his hits is affecting me, and I fall down on one knee, breathing is harder from the hit in my ribs. Looks like a draw is the best I can drag out of this. My only surprise left is the string with explosive kunai. Do I have the guts to make myself a hero?

Sasuke has stopped, and looks at me. He's trying not to show any weakness, but he's obviously breathing hard, and scratched all over. That one explosive kunai that landed close to him, and the depletion of his chakra have worn him out. So it wasn't easy on him either. Tactically, it was a good fight, I have no regrets though I made some mistakes, but honestly I don't think I could have done any better than this.

It's very odd, the feeling of coming to terms with the fact that I have to force a draw in this situation. I know it literally means I'll blow the both of us up, but the certainty of it all makes me feel serene right now. The real question remains, will I be able to do it, in a few moments?

* * *

Slowly, I look up. I notice the trunk we're on had been damaged somewhat by the explosion from when we exchanged our arsenal of weapons. I could have used that to my advantage but it's too late now. I see tons of things I could have used to form a strategy, but it's simply too late. Maybe if I had.. no, none of that matters now.

In a fight you start to understand your opponents through the way they make their decisions. You understand the urgency for them to resort to fighting, whether it's duty or something else. You understand how they anticipate and deal with problems. He knows what this situation means, he knows I have one final weapon. He must have stared down this sort of scenario before.

I get up, swinging the knife on my right hand at his upper torso like before. As I thought, he doesn't counter-attack it with the same move he did before, but instead tries to kick. Again he lands a hit, but this time I wanted him to hit me, and I lock his leg in with my left arm.

Flexible as he is, he contorts and punches me, causing my head to spin away from the impact. I feel blood on the inside of my mouth, but I don't let go. I take out the string of explosive kunai that I usually use for trapping people, and throw it around my arm and his leg. No way out now. The realisation hits him and he looks at me questioningly, as if to say, "Are you really that crazy?". All that's left now is to strike it, and we both go out with a bang.

I know now why I was scared at the start of this fight. It wasn't the fight that scared me, nor was it necessarily Sasuke that scared me. Deep down, I knew it would come to this, now I understand that's what scared me at the time, because I'm feeling the same right now. My fingers tremble and I'm feeling sick to my very core, I'm not as tough as I thought I was.

_I can't do it._

Sasuke wastes no time, and I notice his eyes start bleeding. He's going to use something troublesome, no doubt. Acting on survival instinct alone, panic takes over and I smash my head into his nose as hard as I can, losing balance. Since I was holding his leg, we fall down on the branch.

The impact from the fall causes the already damaged trunk to break and we fall several meters to the ground in a big mess of blood, wires with explosive tags, broken branches and leafs.

Sounds become muffled, and I'm getting extremely dizzy. Completely disoriented from the fall, the pain and fatigue, I black out.

* * *

_Ohhh another cliffhanger! I should probably stop doing that, but it's almost impossible not to end with one, since it's still an effective method of making people wonder. And of course as a result, keep reading._

_I decided I'd make Shikamaru weaker, not so much in his fighting but in his character. His opponents always seem to note that he's good at getting away and dodging (Tayuya, Temari and even Hidan), so I figure he's probably more nimble than given credit for. So as a fighter he could do reasonably well if he goes all-out, even if the end-result is inevitable, but I feel he should be the kind of person who can't just take his own life so easily like others seem to. Chiyo, and Anko (though it didnt work) and many others all had some kind of personal motivation to go that far, but Shikamaru doesn't really have that here, not on such a personal level as Naruto, for example.  
_


	14. Waking up to the sound of a moaning girl

A familiar scent enters my nostrils. Slowly opening my eyes, I see mostly darkness. There should be many questions I could ask myself. What is this place, why am I here, or what happened? For some reason none of those seem very pressing at the moment. I'm at peace, I know it. Perhaps this is what it's like to die? Even this question doesn't seem terribly important right now.

I see some shadows here and there, behind a few rocks there's a source of light flickering like a small fire. Maybe it's a camp fire. And that smell?

I take a few steps in that direction, towards that light. There's a couple of rocks to sit on, and the smell is that of cigarettes. There's someone sitting next to the fire.

"I should have known I'd find you here." I tell him.

"Don't flatter yourself, kid. I'm not completely here, it's only a part of me that stayed within you." He tells me as he draws breath, taking in some smoke from his cigarette. He leans over on his knee, and breathes out, releasing the smoke, keeping eye contact during it all. We both smirk.

After a little moment I decide to sit down. I just fought with Sasuke, somehow I dragged out some sort of uneasy draw, I remember falling down and passing out, and yet sitting here, I don't seem to care about any of that.

Now he looks at me a little more seriously, and holds out his pack of cigarettes for me to take one. Tentatively I take one, remembering that we never actually smoked together, it's making me feel a little uneasy at first. Though the scene is so bittersweet I can't help but smile a little as I light the cigarette. A hint of a tear starts to form in my eye, it must be the smoke.

"Shikamaru, how have you been?"

"Not bad, I guess. Every day life is troublesome sometimes, but I shouldn't complain, not really.

"I'm glad you grew up a little. I know I shouldn't play favourites, but part of me stayed to linger within you, to see what becomes of you and our Konoha."

I'm not sure how the afterlife works, if it's even the same for everyone to begin with, or even if there is one at all. For all I know this is my own mind representing this scene for me. In fact, I'm not even sure whether I'm dead or alive yet. For now I just go with it.

"So now what? Are you acting like my conscience?"

"Ha ha! No, no. Not like that. It's not like that at all. I just want you to tell me your life."

I tell him everything. My life after fighting Hidan and Kakuzu, taking care of Kurenai, my intentions of becoming jounin, reading the bingo book, Jiraiya's death and how the village has been, the way the system of the shinobi world in some intangible way starts showing cracks at the foundations, Danzou's Root becoming more open in their dealings around the village, this mission, I tell him everything I can think of. Slowly, and meticulously I tell him every detail. My thoughts and memories come to me easily. More easily than I'm used to.

Finally, I get to the point where I explain my fight with Sasuke. He's now sitting in front of me, his chin resting on his hands, elbows resting on his knees. And always with a cigarette.

Just as I'm about to tell him that I passed out and ended up in this situation, he interrupts me.

"I know you have questions. But unfortunately we'll save the rest for some other day. I hope it won't be too soon. There's a girl waiting for you right now."

What?

The darkness becomes more painful and I taste something weird. There's something stuck in my mouth. It's somewhat sweet and salty, and soft. But there's the metallic taste of blood as well.

I hear the moans of a girl as the light returns to my eyes. I start coughing. My mouth freed as I grabbed what turned out to be an arm. I'm still holding it as my vision starts to adjust. Apparently I'm on the ground. I look at the arm I'm holding. It's covered in marks and there's some blood on it. I remember those marks.

"You!" It's the only thing I manage to say before being overcome with pain and dizziness.

"Yes it's me, you idiot. Now hold still and bite my arm, or else you'll never recover."

Too weak to start a troublesome argument, I grab hold of her and just do as she's told. A wide range of sensations takes over, the taste of skin, the sounds of slight moans, the touch of a girls hands on me, a crazy kaleidoscope of feelings overcomes me, to the point that I become numbed. It's strange, I don't understand it at all, but I recover fully. In fact I feel great, as if I slept under the open skies in a field in Konoha. The whole scene feels too intimate, and leaves me thoroughly confused.

When I let go, I look at her questioningly. She stands up, dusting off her robe and pulling down her sleeve.

"I don't understand any of this."

She's a little pissed off, and adjusts her glasses. She seems to be the impatient type, which is not unexpected seeing how she's a girl, after all.

"What don't you understand?"

"What did you do to me?" I figure I might as well start with the least problematic questions first to ease her into telling me more easily what I want to know.

"It's one of my abilities. That's all you need to know."

"Is it supposed to feel oddly.. eh.. sexual?"

This seems to have pissed her off. Either she's blushing or she's getting mad. Again she adjusts her glasses. It might be a nervous tic of hers. She answers nonetheless.

"That's just a side effect of my ability. Trust me, it's nothing personal, even if your chakra isn't directly revolting like others."

Scratching the back of my head I have to conclude that she's just straight up crazy, that answer barely made sense.

"I guess the real question is, you're supposed to be Sasuke's ally, why are you helping me?"

She sighs. I get up slowly, and take a look at my surroundings. It's the place I fought with Sasuke. We sure left a big mess, broken trees, charred moss, grass and leaves everywhere, and the ground is littered in kunai and shuriken. The only thing missing is Sasuke himself.

It dawns to me, we had left her in captivity at the house we tracked down earlier. How did she escape? What happened to my team? I have to know what's going on.

"Tell me what happened."

She starts walking towards the edge of the forest. When I follow her, she starts talking.

"I was stuck on that wall in that sticky goo, so that sucked. I could hear the fight outside, but then after a while I suddenly didn't hear anything. Not too long afterwards the goo dissolved, and I got to see what was going on outside."

"So? What did you see?"

"Nothing, it was empty. I did see a lot of new tracks, I think my team and yours got ambushed and caught by some other group."

I'm reluctant to believe her, but I let her finish the story.

"So I scanned the surroundings for chakra, and yours were the only ones close by that I could find."

"Ours? You mean Sasuke and mine? So where is he?"

I can tell she's telling me this story against her better judgement. The tick of hers is her tell, no need to be a Hyuuga to pick up on obviously things like these.

"I made him recover, but then he went on ahead and told me to heal you as well. So he went after the other group that caught our teams. On his own." The emphasis on that last part had a bitter sound about it. She must be another of Sasuke's fan girls. Some things never change, do they? She continues her story.

"The way I see it, you owe us for keeping you alive, since you would have died on your own. So to make it up to us, you'll help us find the rest of our team, and who knows, you may even find your own team as well."

It's easy to see this isn't her own plan. Sasuke must have told her to say this to me. So he's running his team with a certain hierarchy instead of equals. Different style than what I'm used to, but he's not really a people person, so it probably fits him best like this.

But no matter who said it, I'm in their debt, that's undeniable. If they had wanted to they could have killed me or left me to die. If what they say is true about my team, then I have no choice, this is better for the both of us. I could even spin it, and say that my team getting captured is the reason I'm alive right now. Is there no end to my luck?

Regardless, this whole situation has gotten even more troublesome than it already was.

"Before I decide to help you out, I want to see the scene for myself."

"What makes you think you have a choice?"

"You know what? Never mind, arguing about it like this, it's too much work."

I can tell she thinks of this as some sort of victory, but I learned long ago to let girls think they get what they want. It's just less hassle.

We arrive at the village, on the spot where both our teams fought. There's some signs of explosions and impacts from heavy weapons here and there, they must have fought for a while until they got caught.

"You said another group ambushed our teams?"

"So? What about it?"

"Well, there's no signs and tracks that point to another group fighting them."

"Like I said, one moment I hear them fighting, then the next moment it's quiet."

It's possible this was a jutsu. It happened once before that a genjutsu took out several people like that. Something similar to Kabuto's Temple of Nirvana technique. This would explain why the fighting stopped. Izumo and Kotetsu aren't really genjutsu types and neither is Kankuro, and from the looks of it, the two from Sasuke's team weren't very refined either. All of them could have easily been caught in an illusion or trance.

So the Hidden Rock has made their move. I wonder if there's something this girl is leaving out. It doesn't seem there's much to gain by that, but I could be working on a need to know basis. Come to think of it..

"Hey, you. What's your name anyway?" I think someone mentioned her name already but it didn't seem very interesting at the time to remember it.

"It's Karin. Sasuke told me yours already. Let's just get going and back him up."

So hasty... I need a cigarette first. I reach for it, and open the lighter.

"No, you don't smoke around me! It's smelly, got that?!"

I ignore her and inhale. It's soothing my nerves and just having something to fiddle with helps me focus my thoughts. I may work together with this Karin girl but it doesn't mean I have to be polite.

"Hey! Do as I say, come on!" She demands, as she takes a sort of school teacher pose, one hand on her hip and the other adjusting her glasses. That gave her away, again. Looks like she has a tough time dealing with people who ignore her.

I exhale some smoke in her face, causing her to make a little cough. Sorry, Karin, but it seems you just don't have what it takes to boss me around. I pass her, and hands in my pockets, smoking a cigarette, I nonchalantly start going in the direction she pointed out, jumping to the trees. She did point towards the edge of another forest.

She quickly catches up with me, and I let her lead the way from now on. It's a silly girl, Karin likes to think she's in charge but when she's not, she becomes silent and meek. Nonetheless it seems she has something to say.

"You know, you should be thankful Sasuke spared your life, after you had a fight with him. I can't even believe you're someone who could last more than a few seconds against him."

Still mad at me, are you? Hiding behind almighty Sasuke now. Be that way, I won't pretend to get along with you or him anyway, when this is over, I'll still have to kill him. It's better for everyone.

Sometimes you hear people say, there is a spiral of violence, people fighting generates hatred that eventually causes more people to fight. It's inescapable and inherent to us as humans. If I were to succeed in killing Sasuke, she could be one of the people that would become hateful and sooner or later want to fight me.

If you consider this spiral of violence, it's not the perfect solution. But on the other hand if I let Sasuke live, his actions will generate even more violence. Him having joined Akatsuki has made him a pretty important missing nin, and being from Hidden Leaf, if he ever raises his hand against another nation, it could cause a rift in this already uneasy agreement between the five great nations. There is so much that could go wrong, it warrants an assassination.

Even if it will make it harder for me to find my team's whereabouts, if at any point it seems Sasuke has been sighted by Hidden Rock, I have to either kill the messenger or kill Sasuke in order to prevent a worst case scenario. Unlike Karin or Sasuke, I still have the future of my village to think about.

* * *

_For all you people who are not yet reading the manga up to the latest chapter_, _it's probably better to skip this part, there's some spoilers._

_So as it turns out, Kankuro has revealed a new puppet, and it's Sasori, how interesting. Now where did I read about this before?  
There's also some spoilers out for the chapter that will be released tomorrow, and it's very interesting to see how Shikamaru feels about this whole deal with Sasuke. Which I already had decided upon in the previous chapters, so it was very encouraging to see I got Shikamaru's character right, canon-wise.  
And not to mention according to Mifune the leader from Iron country to hosts the summit, Earth country has apparently been expansive, and reinforcing their military contrary to the other great nations who have been busy with disarmament. Even this fits in with my story perfectly.  
A little too perfectly, even. Seriously, if Shikamaru ends up summoning Hidan's head, then as far as I'm concerned, it's proven and Kishimoto reads my fanfic.  
_


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